est in all his little beasts
an' varmints thet he first took sech a notion to Miss Phoebe Kellog's
school. Where any other teacher would scold about sech things ez he'd
fetch in, why, she'd encourage him to bring 'em to her; an' she'd fix
a place for 'em, an' maybe git out some book tellin' all about 'em, an'
showin' pictures of 'em.

She's had squir'l-books, an' bird-books, an' books on nearly every sort
o' wild critter you'd think too mean to _put_ into a book, at that
school, an' give the child'en readin'-lessons on 'em an' drawin'-lessons
an' clay-moldin' lessons.

Why, Sonny has did his alligator so nach'l in clay thet you'd most
expec' to see it creep away. An' you'd think mo' of alligators forever
afterward, too. An' ez to readin', he never did take no interest in
learnin' how to read out'n them school-readers, which he declares don't
no more'n git a person interested in one thing befo' they start on
another, an' maybe start _that_ in the middle.

The other teachers, they makes a heap o' fun o' Miss Phoebe's way
o' school-teachin', 'cause she lets the child'en ask all sorts of
outlandish questions, an' make pictures in school hours, an' she
don't requi' 'em to fold their arms in school, neither.

Maybe she is foolin' their time away. I can't say ez I exac'ly see how
she's a workin' it to edjercate 'em that a-way. I had to set with my
arms folded eight hours a day in school when I was a boy, to learn the
little I know, an' wife she got her edjercation the same way. An' we
went clean thoo f'om the _a-b abs_ an' _e-b ebs_ clair to the end o' the
blue-back speller.

An' we learned to purnounce a heap mo' words than either one of us has
ever needed to know, though there has been times, sech ez when my wife's
mother took the phthisic an' I had the asthma, thet I was obligated to
write to the doctor about it, thet I was thankful for my experience in
the blue-back speller. Them was our brag-words, phthisic and asthma was.
They's a few other words I've always hoped to have a chance to spell in
the reg'lar co'se of life, sech ez y-a-c-h-t, yacht, but I suppose,
livin' in a little inland town, which a yacht is a boat, a person
couldn't be expected to need sech a word--less'n he went travelin'.

I've often thought thet ef at the Jedgment the good Lord would only
examine me an' all them thet went to school in my day, in the old
blue-back speller 'stid o' tacklin' us on the weak pints of our pore
mortal lives, why, we'd