able to profit by all his failures in taste and method,
so that each story had a fierce bear in it and a fair amount of growling
by and by. But I could not teach him to sing, and it was a great sorrow
to me. I often tried and he tried, but I saw that it wasn't going to
pay. He couldn't make the right kind of a noise. Through all this I did
not neglect his morals. If he said an improper word--and I regret to say
that he did now and then--I promptly corrected him and reported his
conduct to Aunt Deel, and if she was inclined to be too severe I took
his part and, now and then, got snapped on the forehead for the vigor of
my defense. On the whole it is no wonder that Uncle Peabody wearied of
his schooling.

One day when Uncle Peabody went for the mail he brought Amos Grimshaw to
visit me. I had not seen him since the day he was eating doughnuts in
the village with his father. He was four years older than I--a freckled,
red-haired boy with a large mouth and thin lips. He wore a silver watch
and chain, which strongly recommended him in my view and enabled me to
endure his air of condescension.

He let me feel it and look it all over and I slyly touched the chain
with my tongue just to see if it had any taste to it, and Amos told me
that his grandfather had given it to him and that it always kept him
"kind o' scairt."

"Why?"

"For fear I'll break er lose it an' git licked," he answered.

We went and sat down on the hay together, and I showed him the pennies I
had saved and he showed me where his father had cut his leg that morning
with a blue beech rod.

"Don't you ever git licked?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"I guess that's because you ain't got any father," he answered. "I wish
I hadn't. There's nobody so mean as a father. Mine makes me work every
day an' never gives me a penny an' licks me whenever I do anything that
I want to. I've made up my mind to run away from home."

After a moment of silence he exclaimed:

"Gosh! It's awful lonesome here! Gee whittaker! this is the worst place
I ever saw!"

I tried to think of something that I could say for it.

"We have got a new corn sheller," I said, rather timidly.

"I don't care about your corn shellers," he answered with a look of
scorn.

He took a little yellow paper-covered book from his pocket and began to
read to himself.

I felt thoroughly ashamed of the place and sat near him and, for a time,
said nothing as he read.

"What's that?" I ventured to