e read stories about. He was very entertaining this day.
His mother had him show me a portrait of himself and curls that had been
printed in a magazine devoted to mothers and watermelon-rind pickles, and
so forth, and he also brought me the new book his pastor had presented
him with on his eighth birthday.

It was a lovely bound book, having a story about a sheepman that had a
hundred head out on the range and lost one and left the other ninety-nine
unprotected from the coyotes and went out into the brush looking for the
lost one, which is about the brains of the average sheepman; but it was a
pretty book, and little Shelley told me prettily all about the story, and
showed me how his dear pastor had wrote in it for him. He had wrote: "To
Shelley Vane Plunkett, who to the distinction of his name unites a noble
and elevated nature." I wonder if Bugs Plunkett ever looks at that
writing now and blushes for his lost angel face? Anyway, I thought this
day that he was the loveliest, purest child in the world, with his
delicate beauty and sweet little voice and perfect manners, all set
off by the golden curls.

A couple days later I was going through that same street and when I
turned a corner next to the Plunkett house, here was little Shelley
addressing a large red-faced man on the back of an ice wagon that had
stopped there. It was some shock to my first notions of the angel child.
I gathered with no trouble whatever that the party on the ice wagon had
so far forgot his own manners as to call little Shelley a sissy. It was a
good three-to-one bet he was now sorry he spoke. Little Shelley was using
language beyond his years and words that had never been taught him by his
lady mother. He handled them words like they was his slaves. Three or
four other parties stopped to listen without seeming to. I have heard
much in my time. I have even been forced to hear Jeff Tuttle pack a mule
that preferred not to be packed. And little Shelley was informing, even
to me. He never hesitated for a word and was quick and finished with the
syllables.

The ice-wagon man was peeved, as he had a right to be, and may of been
going to talk back, but when he saw the rest of us getting Shelley he
yelled to the man in the front to drive on. It was too late, quick as
he went, to save the fair repute of himself and family, if Shelley's
words was to be took seriously. Shelley had invaded the most sacred
relationship and pretended to bare a hideous scan