him! Onc't they wuz a
rich lady swallered one--when he wuz little, you know; an' he growed
up in her, an' it didn't kill him ut all. An' you could hear him
holler in her bosom. It was a tree-toad; and so ever' time he'd go
p-r-r-r-r- w'y, nen the grand lady she'd know it was goin' to rain,
an' make her little boy run an' putt the tub under the spout. Wasn't
that a b'utiful frog?

ON PIRUTS

Piruts is reckless to a fault. They ain't afeard of nobody ner
nothin'. Ef ever you insult a pirut onc't, he'll foller you to the
grave but what he will revenge his wrongs. Piruts all looks like
pictures of "Buffalo Bill"--on'y they don't shave off the whiskers
that sticks out over the collar of their low-necked shirt. Ever' day
is a picknick fer the piruts of the high seas. They eat gunpowder an'
drink blood to make 'em savage, and then they kill people all day, an'
set up all night an' tell ghost stories an' sing songs such as mortal
ear would quail to listen to. Piruts never comes on shore on'y when
they run out of tobacker; an' then it's a cold day ef they don't land
at midnight, an' disguize theirselves an' slip up in town like a
sleuth houn', so's the Grand Jury can't git on to 'em. They don't care
fer the police any more than us people who dwells right in their
midst. Piruts makes big wages an' spends it like a king. "Come easy,
go easy," is the fatal watchword of them whose deeds is Deth. Onc't
they wuz a pirut turned out of the house an' home by his cruel parents
when he wuz but a kid, an' so he always went by that name. He was
thrust adrift without a nickel, an' sailed fer distant shores to hide
his shame fer those he loved. In the dead of night he stol'd a new
suit of the captain's clothes. An' when he growed up big enough to fit
'em, he gaily dressed hissef and went up an' paced the quarter-deck in
deep thought. He had not fergot how the captain onc't had lashed him
to the jib-boom-poop an' whipped him. That stung his proud spirit even
then; an' so the first thing he done was to slip up behind the cruel
officer an' push him over-board. Then the ship wuz his fer better er
fer worse. An' so he took command, an' hung high upon the beetling
mast the pirut flag. Then he took the Bible his old mother give him,
an' tied a darnic round it an' sunk it in the sand with a mocking
laugh. Then it wuz that he wuz ready fer the pirut's wild seafaring
life. He worked the business fer all they wuz in it fer many years,
but wuz run i