down an' had it fixed right. They all wanted Sonny, too, come down to
the truth, 'cause besides bein' fond of him, they knowed thet Sonny
always fetched a big basket.

[Illustration: "He was watchin' a bird-nest on the way to that school."]

Trouble with Sonny is thet he don't take nothin' on nobody's say-so,
don't keer who it is. He even commenced to dispute Moses one Sunday when
wife was readin' the Holy Scriptures to him, tell of co'se she made him
understand thet that wouldn't do. Moses didn't intend to _be_
conterdicted.

An' ez to secular lessons, he ain't got no espec' for 'em whatsoever.
F' instance, when the teacher learned him thet the world was round, why
he up an' told him _'t warn't so_, less'n we was on the inside an' it
was blue-lined, which of co'se teacher he insisted thet we was _on the
outside_, walkin' over it, all feet todes the center--a thing I've
always thought myself was mo' easy said than proved.

Well, sir, Sonny didn't hesitate to deny it, an' of co'se teacher he
commenced by givin' him a check--which is a bad mark--for conterdictin'.
An' then Sonny he 'lowed thet he didn't conterdic' to _be_
aconterdictin', but he _knowed't_ warn't so. He had walked the whole
len'th o' the road 'twix' the farm an' the school-house, an' they warn't
_no bulge in it_; an' besides, he hadn't never saw over the edges of it.

An' with that teacher he give him another check for speakin' out o'
turn. An' then Sonny, says he, "Ef a man was tall enough he could see
around the edges, couldn't he?" "No," says the teacher; "a man couldn't
grow that tall," says he; "he'd be deformed."

An' Sonny, why, he spoke up again, an' says he, "But I'm thess a-sayin'
_ef_," says he. "An' teacher," says he, "we ain't a-studyin' _efs_;
we're studyin' geoger'phy." And then Sonny they say he kep' still a
minute, an' then he says, says he, "Oh, maybe he couldn't see over the
edges, teacher, 'cause ef he was tall enough his head might reach up
into the flo' o' heaven." And with that teacher he give him another
check, an' told him not to dare to mix up geoger'phy an' religion, which
was a sackerlege to both studies; an' with that Sonny gethered up his
books an' set out to another school.

I think myself it 'u'd be thess ez well ef Sonny wasn't quite so quick
to conterdic'; but it's thess his way of holdin' his p'int.

Why, one day he faced one o' the teachers down thet two an' two didn't
_haf_ to make _fo_', wh'er or no.

T