to give 'em ambition to
work their own way out mos' gen'ally.

But, sir, this splinter didn't seem to have no energy in it. It thess
lodged there, an' his little foot it commenced to swell, an' it swole
an' swole tell his little toes stuck out so thet the little pig thet
went to market looked like ez ef it wasn't on speakin' terms with the
little pig thet stayed home, an' wife an' me we watched it, an' I reckon
she prayed over it consider'ble, an' I read a extry psalm at night befo'
I went to bed, all on account o' that little foot. An' night befo' las'
it was lookin' mighty angry an' swole, an' he had limped an' "ouched!"
consider'ble all day, an' he was mighty fretful bed-time. So, after he
went to sleep, wife she come out on the po'ch where I was settin', and
she says to me, says she, her face all drawed up an' workin', says she:
"Honey," says she, "I reckon we better sen' for him an' have it did."
Thess so, she said it. "Sen' for who, wife?" says I, "an' have what
did?" "Why, sen' for him, the 'Piscopal preacher," says she, "an' have
Sonny christened. Them little toes o' hisn is ez red ez cherry tomatoes.
They burnt my lips thess now like a coal o' fire an'--an' lockjaw is
goin' roun' tur'ble.

"Seems to me," says she, "when he started to git sleepy, he didn't gap
ez wide ez he gen'ly does--an' I'm 'feered he's a-gittin' it now." An',
sir, with that, she thess gathered up her apron an' mopped her face in
it an' give way. An' ez for me, I didn't seem to have no mo' backbone
down my spinal colume 'n a feather bolster has, I was that weak.

I never ast her why she didn't sen' for our own preacher. I knowed then
ez well ez ef she'd 'a' told me why she done it--all on account o' Sonny
bein' so tickled over the 'Piscopals' meetin's.

It was mos' nine o'clock then, an' a dark night, an' rainin', but I
never said a word--they wasn't no room round the edges o' the lump in my
throat for words to come out ef they'd 'a' been one surgin' up there to
say, which they wasn't--but I thess went out an' saddled my horse an' I
rid into town. Stopped first at the doctor's an' sent him out, though I
knowed 't wouldn't do no good; Sonny wouldn't 'low him to tech it; but
I sent him out anyway, to look at it, an', ef possible, console wife a
little. Then I rid on to the rector's an' ast him to come out immejate
an' baptize Sonny. But nex' day was his turn to preach down at Sandy
Crik, an' he couldn't come that night, but he promised to c