sweepin' up the h'a'th; the meat on the table; old Trailler jumps up,
gethers the bacon, and darts! Mammy arter him with the broom-stick as
fur as the door, but seein' the dog has got the start, she shakes the
stick at him, and hollers, 'You sassy, aigsukkin', roguish, gnatty,
flop-eared varmint! take it along! take it along! I only wish 'twas full
of a'snic, and ox-vomit, and blue vitrul, so as 'twould cut your interls
into chitlins!' That's about the way you give Bunch to Simon."

"Oh, shuh, Ben," remarked Simon, "I wouldn't run on that way. Daddy
couldn't help it; it was _predestinated_: 'Whom he hath, he will,' you
know," and the rascal pulled down the under lid of his left eye at his
brother. Then addressing his father, he asked, "War'n't it, daddy?"

"To be sure--to be sure--all fixed aforehand," was old Mr. Suggs' reply.

"Didn't I tell you so, Ben?" said Simon. "_I_ knowed it was all fixed
aforehand," and he laughed until he was purple in the face.

"What's in ye? What are ye laughin' about?" asked the old man wrothily.

"Oh, it's so funny that it could all 'a' been _fixed aforehand_!" said
Simon, and laughed louder than before. The obtusity of the Reverend Mr.
Suggs, however, prevented his making any discoveries. He fell into a
brown study, and no further allusion was made to the matter.

It was evident to our hero that his father intended he should remain but
one more night beneath the paternal roof. What mattered it to Simon?

He went home at night; curried and fed Bunch; whispered confidentially
in his ear that he was the "fastest piece of hossflesh, accordin' to
size, that ever shaded the yearth;" and then busied himself in preparing
for an early start on the morrow.

Old Mr. Suggs' big red rooster had hardly ceased crowing in announcement
of the coming dawn, when Simon mounted the intractable Bunch. Both were
in high spirits: our hero at the idea of unrestrained license in future;
and Bunch from a mesmerical transmission to himself of a portion of his
master's deviltry. Simon raised himself in the stirrups, yelled a
tolerably fair imitation of the Creek war-whoop, and shouted:

"I'm off, old stud! Remember the Jack-a-hearts!"

Bunch shook his little head, tucked down his tail, ran sideways, as if
going to fall, and then suddenly reared, squealed, and struck off at a
brisk gallop.

A PIANO IN ARKANSAS

BY THOMAS BANGS THORPE

We shall never forget the excitement which seized upon the in