Henley said, sympathetically; "and that's bad. Why, he's
hardly out o' the spelling-book class, and hain't a sign of fuzz on his
lip. The last time he was in here I know the crowd was teasing him
because his voice was in the gosling stage. It had sech a funny way of
wobbling about from bass to treble."

"But he thinks he's full grown," the woman sighed, "and won't listen to
reason. He keeps declarin' he's older than the way it's recorded in the
Bible. This last trouble begun at the Sunday-school Christmas-tree, when
Carrie put on an embroidered handkerchief for him. That turned his head,
and he hain't hardly let her out of his sight sence. He growed from
child to man betwixt two suns."

"They'll do that sometimes," Henley said. "It is surely an odd sort of
attachment. She is plenty old to have nursed him. I wouldn't be afraid
to say that she was cutting her eyes at men when he was cutting his
teeth. Thinking of that ud make some fellers ashamed to act that way,
but as apt as not Johnny don't let himself study about it. Somehow I can
excuse it better in the boy than in her, because she's old enough to
know better."

The old woman nodded and sighed again. "Alfred, sometimes I think I've
had more put on me than my share in this world. I've had three sons
besides this un, and every last one of 'em give me trouble along at
Johnny's age."

"And about women older 'n they was, too, I've heard," Henley said.

"Yes, it looks like it runs in the blood--not in mine, thank the Lord!
for I wish nary woman had ever been made; yes, all of my boys no sooner
got out o' frocks than they made a dead-run for the first old maid in
sight, and marry they would in spite of all possessed."

"And not one got hitched up exactly right," said Henley.

"Not one, Alfred. The two oldest stuck to their hot-headed agreement
long enough to feel sort o' tied down, and they went clean off an' left
their wives high and dry. Jim is still living with his'n, but I cry my
eyes out every time I see the pore fellow. Looks like he hain't got a
thing to live for. When a man leaves his own fireside and comes and sets
around his mammy's house like Jim does, he hain't got no paradise under
his own roof. Ef he'd 'a' had children it mought 'a' been different. I
did think I could show Johnny the mistakes of his brothers and make him
act different. I've talked it to him sence he was old enough to know
right from wrong, but you see how little weight it had."

"Why