wo
little boys were soon comfortably settled facing each other in the big
lawn-swing.

"Who lives over there?" asked Billy, pointing to the house across the
street.

"That's Miss Cecilia's house. That's her coming out of the front gate
now."

The young lady smiled and waved her hand at them.

"Ain't she a peach?" asked Jimmy. "She's my sweetheart and she is 'bout
the swellest sweetheart they is."

"She's mine, too," promptly replied Billy, who had fallen in love at
first sight. "I's a-goin' to have her fer my sweetheart too."

"Naw, she ain't yours, neither; she's mine," angrily declared the other
little boy, kicking his rival's legs. "You all time talking 'bout you
going to have Miss Cecilia for your sweetheart. She's done already
promised me."

"I'll tell you what," proposed Billy, "lemme have her an' you can have
Aunt Minerva."

"I wouldn't have Miss Minerva to save your life," replied Jimmy
disrespectfully, "her nake ain't no bigger 'n that," making a circle
of his thumb and forefinger. "Miss Cecilia, Miss Cecilia," he shrieked
tantalizingly, "is my sweetheart."

"I'll betcher I have her fer a sweetheart soon as ever I see her," said
Billy.

"What's your name?" asked Jimmy presently.

"Aunt Minerva says it's William Green Hill, but 'tain't, it's jest plain
Billy," responded the little boy.

"Ain't God a nice, good old man," remarked Billy, after they had swung
in silence for a while, with an evident desire to make talk.

"That He is," replied Jimmy, enthusiastically. "He's 'bout the
forgivingest person ever was. I just couldn't get 'long at all 'thout
Him. It don't make no differ'nce what you do or how many times you
run off, all you got to do is just ask God to forgive you and tell him
you're sorry and ain't going to do so no more, that night when you say
your prayers, and it's all right with God. S'posing He was one of these
wants-his-own-way kind o' mans, He could make Hi'self the troublesomest
person ever was, and little boys couldn't do nothing a tall. I sure
think a heap of God. He ain't never give me the worst of it yet."

"I wonder what He looks like," mused Billy.

"I s'pec' He just looks like the three-headed giant in Jack the
Giant-Killer," explained Jimmy, "'cause He's got three heads and one
body. His heads are name' Papa, Son, and Holy Ghost, and His body is
just name' plain God. Miss Cecilia 'splained it all to me and she
is 'bout the splendidest 'splainer they is. She's my Sunday