wife she'd always jump up an' git the mutton taller. I never took it
serious myself, 'cause I know how a triflin' thing 'll sometimes turn a
level-headed little chap into a drizzlin' ejiot. I been there myself.

But th' ain't no danger in it, not less'n he's made a laughin'-stalk
of--which is cruelty to animals, an' shouldn't be allowed.

I know when I went to school up here at Sandy Cri'k, forty year ago, I
was teached by a certain single lady that has subsequently died a nachel
death of old age an' virtuous works, an' in them days she wo'e a knitted
collar, an' long curls both sides of her face; an' I've seen many a
night, after the candle was out, thet she'd appear befo' me. She'd seem
to come an' hang over my bed-canopy same ez a chandelier, with them side
curls all a-jinglin' like cut-glass dangles. It's true, she used mostly
to appear with a long peach-switch in her hand, but that was nachel
enough, that bein' the way she most gen'ally approached me in life.

But of co'se I come th'oo without taller. My mother had thirteen of us,
an' ef she'd started anointin' us for all our little side-curled
nightmares, she'd 'a' had to go to goose raisin'.

You see, in them days they used goose grease.

I never to say admired that side-curled lady much, though she's made
some lastin' impressions on me. Why, I could set down now, an' make a
drawin' of that knitted collar she used to wear, an' it over forty year
ago. I ricollec' she was cross-eyed, too, in the eye todes the foot o'
the class, where I'd occasionally set; an', tell the truth, it was the
strongest reason for study thet I had--thess to get on to the side of
her certain eye. Th' ain't anything much mo' tantalizin' to a person
than uncertainty in sech matters.

She was mighty plain, an' yet some o' the boys seemed to see beauty in
her. I know my brother Bob, he confided to mother once-t thet he thought
she looked thess precizely like the Queen o' Sheba must'a' looked, an'
I ricollec' thet he cried bitter because mother told it out on him at
the dinner-table. It was turrible cruel, but she didn't reelize.

I reckon, ef the truth was known, most of us nine has seen them side
curls in our sleep. An' nobody but God an' his angels will ever
know how many of us passed th'oo the valley o' the shadder o' that
singular-appearin' lady, or how often we notified the other eight of the
fact, unbeknowinst to his audience, while they was distributed in their
little trundle-bed