she
don't want to be one, an' she won't act like it, an' she--she won't
dress like it. Every time I argue with her she beats me to it, an' I'm
plumb stumped. Yesterday I told her she had to take 'em off an' wear
dresses, an' she did; but now she won't speak to me."

"You mean that you said that she was never to argue with you again?"
sez I, indignant.

"No, I mean that I sez she must take those confounded buckskin pants
off! She's big enough now to begin to train to become a woman--not a
man."

I had to grin a little, but even though it didn't seem as skeptical to
me as it did to him, I saw he might be right about it. Still, I wasn't
goin' to take sides without hearin' all the evidence, so I sez, "Is she
healthy, Jabez?"

"Healthy?" he sez. "Why, that child could winter through without
shelter an' come out in the spring kickin' up her heels an' snortin'."

"Well, that much is in her favor," sez I. "Is she good at her studies?"

"Where you been that you haven't heard about it?" sez he. "Last winter
she out-ciphered an' out-spelt the schoolmarm, an' she fuddled up one
o' these missionary preachers till he didn't know where he was at. She
has been studyin' about all kinds o' things, an' she cornered him up on
the first chapter o' Genesis. She lined out the school-marm first, an'
the schoolmarm came an' told me that she was an infidel--the' ain't no
sense in havin' women teach school, Happy. You can't reason with 'em
an' you can't fight with 'em an' they just about pester a body to
death. I don't see how Barbie stands it."

"Well, what did you do about her bein' an infidel?" sez I.

"I couldn't do anything to the teacher except tell her what I thought
of her; but next Sunday I had Barbie read to me the first chapter o'
Genesis. Did you ever read it, Happy?"

"Yes," sez I, "I read all of that book an' most of the next one. Me an'
another feller had a dispute about the Bible one time, an' he said it
was the best readin' the' was, an' I said it was too dry. He read me
about a feller in it named Samson, who was full o' jokes an' the
strongest man ever was, I reckon, before he let that Philistine woman
loco him, an' he read about another feller, just a mite of a boy, who
killed a giant with a slingshot in front of an army which had made fun
of him an' was all ready to give in to the giant, an' he read me some
poems about mountains; an' I had to give in that the Bible was the
greatest book ever was. That was up at a li