ung round the
place a whole season, an' Sonny used to vow he was goin' to kill it,
'cause it kep' a-ketchin' the birds.

Well, one day he happened to see him thess runnin' off with a young
mockin'-bird in his mouth, an' he took a brickbat an' he let him have
it, an' of co'se he dropped the bird an' tumbled over--stunted. The bird
it got well, and Sonny turned him loose after a few days; but that cat
was hurted fatal. He couldn't never no mo' 'n drag hisself around from
that day to this; an' I reckon ef Sonny was called on to give up every
pet he's got, that cat would be 'bout the last thing he'd surrender. He
named him Tommy Jones, an' he never goes to school of a mornin', rain or
shine, till Tommy Jones is fed f'om his own plate with somethin' he's
left for him special.

Of co'se Sonny he's got his faults, which anybody 'll tell you; but th'
ain't a dumb brute on the farm but'll foller him around--an' the nigger
Dicey, why, she thinks they never was such another boy born into the
world--that is, not no human child.

An' wife an' me--

But of co'se he's ours.

I don't doubt thet he ain't constructed thess exac'ly ez the
school-teachers would have him, ef they had their way. Sometimes I have
thought I'd like his disposition eased up a little, myself, when he
taken a stand ag'in my jedgment or wife's.

Takin' 'em all round, though, the teachers has been mighty patient with
him.

At one school the teacher did take him out behind the school-house one
day to whup him; an' although teacher is a big strong man, Sonny's
mighty wiry an' quick, an' some way he slipped his holt, an' fo' teacher
could ketch him ag'in he had clumb up the lightnin'-rod on to the roof
thess like a cat. An' teacher he felt purty shore of him then, 'cause he
'lowed they wasn't no other way to git down (which they wasn't, the
school bein' a steep-sided buildin'), an' he 'd wait for him.

So teacher he set down close-t to the lightnin'-rod to wait. He wouldn't
go back in school without him, cause he didn't want the child'en to know
he'd got away. So down he set; but he hadn't no mo' 'n took his seat
sca'cely when he heerd the child'en in school roa'in' out loud, laughin'
fit to kill theirselves.

He lowed at first thet like ez not the monitor was cuttin' up some sort
o' didoes, the way monitors does gen'ally, so he waited a-while; but it
kep' a-gittin' worse, so d'rectly he got up, an' he went in to see what
the excitement was about; an'lo and