Sunday School bothered me terribly, for a lot of reasons. I had to dress up, for one thing, and in the summer time ma made me wear linen suits, which was starched stiff by Delia, our girl. They had sharp edges which scratched. And my hat was too small, and my shoes hurt. And the inside of the church smelt like stale coffee grounds, and the teacher looked hungry and kept parting her lips with a sound as if she was gettin' ready to eat, or wanted to, and she trickled inside like the sound of water or somethin'. Besides, there was no end to the Bible stories and the golden texts. Mitch and the Miller girls went just as if it was the thing to do, and they didn't seem to mind it. It was a part of their life. But it was a little different with Mitch after all, for sometimes he didn't go. He went mostly, but he stayed away if he wanted to read, and his pa let him alone. Mr. Miller was the best man you ever saw, and everybody loved him. It was this way with us children, ma made us go and pa said nothin' about it unless she asked him to make us go, and then he'd say "go on now." But he didn't go himself, or much to church either. I never understood him, he was kind of a mystery. [Illustration: Sunday school] Well, on a Sunday in July me and Myrtle was dressed to go and waitin' for ma to dress Little Billie. It was awful hot and looked like rain, and my clothes scratched, my shoes hurt; but Myrtle was all quiet and anxious to go. Little Billie was frettin', like he allus did. He didn't want to go; and ma was just buttonin' his dress, and had the bowl near to comb his hair out of. And he kept frettin' and sayin' he didn't want to go. By and by ma shook him and said: "You never want to go. I never see such heathen children. None of you want to go." "I do," says Myrtle. "Yes," says ma, "you do. You're good. But Billie and Skeet make this same trouble every Sunday." Then Little Billie began to cry worse, and said his throat hurt him, and ma said, "Let me see." So she looked, and his throat had white splotches, and she said, "Land of the livin'," and began to undress him. His head was hot, too. So she put Myrtle and me out of the room and told us to go and play, and we needn't go to Sunday School. I changed back to my old clothes and went out under the oak tree. Pretty soon the doctor came--Doctor Holland. He drank a lot, but was the smartest doctor in town, just the same. And he and pa quarreled sometimes, but they were friends; for pa said Doc Holland meant no harm, even when he threatened to kill, which he did lots of times, even my pa. It turned out that Little Billie had the diphtheria and the next day he was as sick as a child could be, and live. They did everything for him, even got a kind of a lamp to blow carbolic acid in his throat; but he got no better. And I never saw my pa so worked up; it showed us what child he loved the most. He was about frantic and so was ma, and neither of 'em slept at all, it seemed.