it. 'Pears like thess the other day thet Mis' Wallace fetched
little Mary Elizabeth over to look at Sonny, an' he on'y three days old.
I ricollec' when she seen 'im she took her little one-year-old finger
an' teched 'im on the forehead, an' she says, says she, "Howdy?"--thess
that-a-way. I remember we all thought it was so smart. Seemed like ez ef
she reelized thet he had thess arrived--an' she had thess learned to say
"Howdy," an' she up an' says it.

An' she's ap' at speech yet, so Sonny says. She don't say much when wife
or I are around, which I think is showin' only right an' proper
respec's.

Th' ain't nothin' purtier, to my mind, than for a young girl to set up
at table with her elders, an' to 'tend strictly to business. Mary
Elizabeth'll set th'oo a whole meal, an' sca'cely look up from her
plate. I never did see a little girl do it mo' modest.

Of co'se, Sonny, he bein' at home, an' she bein' his company, why, he
talks constant, an' she'll glance up at him sort o' sideways occasional.
Wife an' me, we find it ez much ez we can do, sometimes, to hold in; we
feel so tickled over their cunnin' little ways together. To see Sonny
politely take her cup o' tea an' po' it out in her saucer to cool for
her so nice, why, it takes all the dignity we can put on to cover our
amusement over it. You see, they've only lately teethed together, them
child'en.

I reckon the thing sort o' got started last summer. I know he give her a
flyin' squir'l, an' she embroidered him a hat-band. I suspicioned then
what was comin', an' I advised wife to make up a few white-bosomed
shirts for him, an' she didn't git 'em done none too soon. 'Twasn't no
time befo' he called for 'em.

A while back befo' that I taken notice thet he 'd put a few idees down
on sheets o' paper for her to write her compositions by. Of co'se, he
wouldn't _write_ 'em. He's too honest. He'd thess sugges' idees
promiscu'us.

She's got words, so he says, an' so she'd write out mighty nice
compositions by his hints. I taken notice thet in this world it's often
that-a-way; one'll have idees, an' another'll have words. They ain't
always bestowed together. When they are, why, then, I reckon, them are
the book-writers. Sonny he's got purty consider'ble o' both for his age,
but, of co'se, he wouldn't never aspire to put nothin' he could think up
into no printed book, I don't reckon; though he's got three blank books
filled with the routine of "out-door housekeeping," ez he