o set myself in as fair a light 's I can in the matter, I want
to tell ye a little story."

"I hain't no objection 's I know of," acquiesced the widow graciously.

"All right," said David, "I won't preach more 'n about up to the
sixthly--How'd you feel if I was to light up a cigar? I hain't much of a
hand at a yarn, an' if I git stuck, I c'n puff a spell. Thank ye. Wa'al,
Mis' Cullom, you used to know somethin' about my folks. I was raised on
Buxton Hill. The' was nine on us, an' I was the youngest o' the lot. My
father farmed a piece of about forty to fifty acres, an' had a small
shop where he done odd times small jobs of tinkerin' fer the neighbors
when the' was anythin' to do. My mother was his second, an' I was the
only child of that marriage. He married agin when I was about two year
old, an' how I ever got raised 's more 'n I c'n tell ye. My sister Polly
was 'sponsible more 'n any one, I guess, an' the only one o' the whole
lot that ever gin me a decent word. Small farmin' ain't cal'lated to
fetch out the best traits of human nature--an' keep 'em out--an' it
seems to me sometimes that when the old man wa'n't cuffin' my ears he
was lickin' me with a rawhide or a strap. Fur 's that was concerned, all
his boys used to ketch it putty reg'lar till they got too big. One on
'em up an' licked him one night, an' lit out next day. I s'pose the old
man's disposition was sp'iled by what some feller said farmin' was,
'workin' all day, an' doin' chores all night,' an' larrupin' me an' all
the rest on us was about all the enjoyment he got. My brothers an'
sisters--'ceptin' of Polly--was putty nigh as bad in respect of cuffs
an' such like; an' my stepmarm was, on the hull, the wust of all. She
hadn't no childern o' her own, an' it appeared 's if I was jes' pizen to
her. 'T wa'n't so much slappin' an' cuffin' with her as 't was tongue.
She c'd say things that 'd jes' raise a blister like pizen ivy. I s'pose
I _was_ about as ord'nary, no-account-lookin', red-headed, freckled
little cuss as you ever see, an' slinkin' in my manners. The air of our
home circle wa'n't cal'lated to raise heroes in.

"I got three four years' schoolin', an' made out to read an' write an'
cipher up to long division 'fore I got through, but after I got to be
six years old, school or no school, I had to work reg'lar at anything I
had strength fer, an' more too. Chores before school an' after school,
an' a two-mile walk to git there. As fur 's clo'es was con