s.

I sometimes wonder ef they ain't no account took of little child'en's
trials. Seems to me they ought to be a little heavenly book kep'
a-purpose; an' 't wouldn't do no harm ef earthly fathers an' mothers
was occasionally allowed to look over it.

My brother Bob, him thet likened Miss Alviry to the Queen o' Sheba,
always was a sensitive-minded child, an' we all knowed it, too; and yet,
we never called him a thing for months after that but Solomon. We ought
to've been whupped good for it.

Bob ain't never married, an' for a bachelor person of singular habits,
he's kep' ez warm a heart ez ever I see.

I've often deplo'ed him not marryin'. In fact, sense I see what comfort
is to be took in a child, why, I deplo' all the singular numbers--though
the Lord couldn't be expected to have a supply on hand thess like Sonny
to distribute 'round on demand.

But I doubt ef parents knows the difference.

I've noticed thet when they can't take pleasure in extry smartness in a
child, why, they make it up in tracin' resemblances. I suppose they's
parental comfort to be took to in all kinds o' babies. I know I've seen
some dull-eyed ones thet seemed like ez ef they wasn't nothin' for 'em
to do _but_ resemble.

But talkin' about Sonny a-fallin' in love with his teachers, why, they
was a time here when he wanted to give away every thing in the house to
first one an' then the other. The first we noticed of it was him tellin'
us how nice Miss Alviry thought his livers and gizzards was. Now,
everybody knows thet they ain't been a chicken thet has died for our
nourishment sence Sonny has cut his eye-teeth but has give up its vitals
to him, an' give 'em willin'ly, they bein' the parts of his choice; an'
it was discouragin', after killin' a useless number o' chickens to git
enough to pack his little lunch-bucket, to have her eat 'em up--an' she
forty year old ef she's a day, an' he not got his growth yet. An' yet, a
chicken liver is thess one o' them little things thet a person couldn't
hardly th'ow up to a school-teacher 'thout seemin' small-minded.

I never did make no open objection to him givin' away anything to his
teachers tell the time he taken a notion to give Miss Phoebe the plush
album out o' the parlor. We was buyin' it on instalments at twenty-five
cents a week, and it wasn't fully installed at the time, an' I told him
it wouldn't never do to give away what wasn't ours.

When it comes to principle, why, I always take a st