marked with the long sound.

Smith ran both hands through his hair, while a wild, panic-stricken look
came upon his face.

"Dog-gone me! I know it's a _a_, but I plumb forget how you called it."

Tubbs unhooked his toes from the chair-legs and walked around to look over
Smith's shoulder.

"Smith, you got a great forgitter," he said sarcastically. "Why don't you
use your head a little? That there is a Bar A. You ought to have knowed
that. The Bar A stock run all over the Judith Basin."

"Don't you remember I told you that whenever you saw that mark over a
letter you should give it the long sound?" explained Dora patiently.

"Like the _a_ in 'aig,'" elucidated Tubbs.

"Like the _a_ in 'snake,'" corrected the Schoolmarm.

"Or 'wake,' or 'skate,' or 'break,'" said Smith hopefully.

"Fine!" declared the Schoolmarm.

"I knowed that much myself," said Tubbs enviously.

"If you'll pardon me, Mr. Tubbs," said Dora, in some irritation, "there
is no such word as 'knowed.'"

"Why don't you talk grammatical, Tubbs?" Smith demanded, with alacrity.

"I talks what I knows," said Tubbs, going back to his chair.

"Have you forgotten all I told you about adjectives?"

"Adjectives is words describin' things. They's two kinds, comparative and
superlative," Smith replied promptly. He added. "Adjectives kind of stuck
in my craw."

"Can you give me examples?" Dora felt encouraged.

"You got a horrible pretty hand," Smith replied, without hesitation.
"'Horrible pretty' is a adjective describin' your hand."

Dora burst out laughing, and Tubbs, without knowing why, joined in
heartily.

"Tubbs," continued Smith, glaring at that person, "has got the horriblest
mug I ever seen, and if he opens it and laffs like that at me again, I
aims to break his head. 'Horriblest' is a superlative adjective describin'
Tubbs's mug."

To Smith's chagrin and Tubbs's delight, Dora explained that "horrible" was
a word which could not be used in conjunction with "pretty," and that its
superlative was not "horriblest."

Smith buried his head in his hands despondently.

"If I was where I could, I'd get drunk!"

"It's nothing to feel so badly about," said Dora comfortingly. "Let's go
back to prepositions. Can you define a preposition?"

Smith screwed up his face and groped for words, but before he found them
Tubbs broke in:

"A preposition is what a feller has to sell that nobody wants," he
explained glibly. "They's copper prepositions, sil