r.

CHAPTER III

Well, all the lammings Hank laid on never done me any good. It seemed
like I was jest natcherally cut out to have no success in life, and no
amount of whaling could change it, though Hank, he was faithful. Before
I was twelve years old the hull town had seen it, and they wasn't
nothing else expected of me except not to be any good.

That had its handy sides to it, too. They was lots of kids there that
had to go to school, but Hank, he never would of let me done that if I
had ast him, and I never asted. And they was lots of kids considerably
bothered all the time with their parents and relations. They made 'em go
to Sunday School, and wash up reg'lar all over on Saturday nights, and
put on shoes and stockings part of the time, even in the summer, and
some of 'em had to ast to go in swimming, and the hull thing was
a continuous trouble and privation to 'em. But they wasn't nothing
perdicted of me, and I done like it was perdicted. Everybody 'lowed
from the start that Hank would of made trash out'n me, even if I hadn't
showed all the signs of being trash anyhow. And if they was devilment
anywhere about that town they all says, "Danny, he done it." And like as
not I has. So I gets to be what you might call an outcast. All the kids
whose folks ain't trash, their mothers tells 'em not to run with me no
more. Which they done it all the more fur that reason, on the sly, and
it makes me more important with them.

But when I gets a little bigger, all that makes me feel kind o' bad
sometimes. It ain't so handy then. Fur folks gets to saying, when I
would come around:

"Danny, what do YOU want?"

And if I says, "Nothing," they would say:

"Well, then, you get out o' here!"

Which they needn't of been suspicioning nothing like they pertended they
did, fur I never stole nothing more'n worter millions and mush millions
and such truck, and mebby now and then a chicken us kids use to roast in
the woods on Sundays, and jest as like as not it was one of Hank's hens
then, which I figgered I'd earnt it.

Fur Hank, he had streaks when he'd work me considerable hard. He never
give me any money fur it. He loafed a lot too, and when he'd loaf I'd
loaf. But I did pick up right smart of handiness with tools around that
there shop of his'n, and if he'd ever of used me right I might of turned
into a purty fair blacksmith. But it wasn't no use trying to work fur
Hank. When I was about fifteen, times is right bad