d
wheedle me into changin' my mind an' lettin' a man break his word."

"Well, he needed it mighty bad," sez I.

"An' another thing; it ain't no fit thing for a gal child to be beggin'
for a man to go get drunk," sez Jabez. "Maybe not," sez I, "but he sure
needed it."

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE LETTER

It all came about through me bein' edicated. Most any one can read
print words, if they're of a reasonable size,--the words I mean,--but I
could read handwritin' too. I never was no great mathematician when you
got above fractions, an' I was some particular in what I read; but if I
'd been minded that way, I reckon I could have waded through purty much
any kind of a book ever was written. At that time, however, I was still
middlin' young in some things, an' I sure was suspicious of any kind of
book 'at looked like a school book.

If you'd have school books did up in paper with the right kind of
pictures on the covers you could easy get children to peruse 'em. Did
you ever notice bear cubs gettin' an edication? They ain't beat into
it, they has to be helt back. Same with the Injun kids; they was up on
edge to learn until they got to schoolin' 'em, then they fought again
it just like the white kids. The reason is that we make children learn
things they ain't curious about. I bet if you was to try an' keep it a
secret about George Washington bein' made President because he wouldn't
lie about choppin' down that cherry tree, the kids would stay awake
nights to pry into it. Kids is only human, any way you take 'em.

But this business was sure a fetcher to me, an' Barbie, she just
stumbled on it too. One afternoon me an' her went for a little ride up
into the foothills, an' after we'd built our fire, like we allus did,
no matter how hot it was, she lay there rollin' cigarettes for me to
smoke, like she allus did--the little scamp used to get on the lee side
o' me so the smoke would blow in her face; but we never mentioned it.

Well, after a while she begun to talk of romances, an' to ask me
questions about 'em. I told her as many as I could remember, an' the
one what suited her best was "Claud, the Boy Hero of Gore Gulch." It
allus used to fret her to think 'at the' wasn't nothing she could do to
make her a boy, an' she tried to even up by plannin' to herself what
she'd have done if so be she had been a boy. We talked along about as
usual; but I see the' was somethin' on her mind. She wasn't the one to
flare up an' sho