seemed I'd been there a month. I had made kites and done
about everything, and I began to think of Saturday, when I'd see Mitch.
So on Thursday I said to grandma that I had to go by Saturday, and she
says, "Your popie said you was to stay all this month. You must get
well, and besides I want you here with me."

I began to see I was in for it, and what would Mitch say? He would be
waitin' for me on the corner where Linkern got the line wrong, and what
would he think? There was nothing to do but to run away or do somethin'
so they wouldn't want me any more. And I didn't want to do that, but I
pretty near stumbled into it. That afternoon I went out into the work
house and there I found all kinds of paint, red, white, blue and green.
So I began to paint pictures. Then I took to paintin' signs. I got a
nice board and painted a beer keg on it with a glass under the faucet
and beer runnin' in it, all white and foamy. Then I painted some
letters, "Billiards and Beer." It was a dandy sign--as good as you see
in town.

There was an outdoor cellar in the yard, and over the cellar a shed that
you could see from the road; so I nailed the sign up on the shed and
stood off and looked at it. I wasn't thinkin'--I wasn't tryin' to do a
thing. But it looked so funny considerin' that grandpa said that he'd
seen slavery abolished and he'd live to see hard drink done away with
too. And I just laughed. Grandma came out and said, "What you laughin'
at, Skeet?" Says I, "At the chickens." "Here," she says, "don't you feed
them poor dumb creatures red flannel again. Have you?" "No'm," I said.
"Well, if you do, I'll flax you," and she went into the kitchen.

That very afternoon a peddler came into the yard. He had an oilcloth
pack full of tablecloths, napkins, towels, suspenders, lead pencils,
laces, overalls, mirrors, combs--a lot of things. And he threw his pack
down and opened it up. Grandpa was carryin' slop to the pigs. It was
awful hot; you couldn't hardly breathe--except when you got in front of
the cellar door. Grandpa had no use for peddlers and never bought
nothin' of 'em, and he kept answerin' the peddler short and carryin'
slop, so as to keep away from hearin' him ask: "Any napkins, any
handkerchiefs, any combs?" Grandpa kept sayin', "Nope, nope, nope." I
was standing there and all at once I saw the peddler glue his eye on the
sign "Billiards and Beer"--so I thought somethin' was goin' to happen,
and went into the dinin' room and loo