“And you have him still?” I certainly wanted to have a look at that dog. But he did not answer. I saw an expression of great sadness come into his eyes as he gazed out of the window, and I knew that Jacob Enderby had finished his story. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SONNY’S SCHOOLIN’ By RUTH McENERY STUART A Monologue WELL, sir, we’re tryin’ to edjercate him—good ez we can. Th’ ain’t never been a edjercational advantage come in reach of us but we’ve give it to him. Of co’se he’s all we’ve got, that one boy is, an’ wife an’ me, why, we feel the same way about it. They’s three schools in the county, an’ we send him to all three. Sir? Oh, yas, sir; he b’longs to all three schools—to _fo’_, for that matter, countin’ the home school. You see, Sonny he’s purty ticklish to handle, an’ a person has to know thess how to tackle him. Even wife an’ me, thet’s been knowin’ him f’om the beginnin’, not only knowin’ his traits, but how he _come_ by ’em,—though some is hard to trace to their so’ces,—why, sir, even we have to study sometimes to keep in with him, an’ of co’se a teacher—why, it’s thess hit an’ miss whether he’ll take the right tack with him or not; an’ sometimes one teacher’ll strike it one day, an’ another nex’ day; so by payin’ schoolin’ for him right along in all three, why, of co’se, ef he don’t feel like goin’ to one, why, he’ll go to another. Once-t in a while he’ll git out with the whole of ’em, an’ that was how wife come to open the home school for him. She was determined his edjercation shouldn’t be interrupted ef she could help it. She don’t encour’ge him much to go to her school, though, ’cause it interrupts her in her housekeepin’ consider’ble, an’ she’s had extry quilt-patchin’ on hand ever since he come. She’s patchin’ him a set ’ginst the time he’ll marry. An’ then I reckon he frets her a good deal in school. Somehow, seems like he thess picks up enough in the other schools to be able to conterdic’ her ways o’ teachin’. F’ instance, in addin’ up a colume o’ figgers, ef she comes to a aught—which some calls ’em naughts—she’ll say, “Aught’s a aught,” an’ Sonny ain’t been learned to say it that a-way; an’ so maybe when she says, “Aught’s a aught,” he’ll say, “Who said it wasn’t?” an’ that puts her out in countin’. He’s been learned to thess pass over aughts an’ not call their names; and once-t or twice-t, when wife called ’em out that a-way, why, he got so fretted he thess gethered up his things an’ went to another school. But seem like she’s added aughts that a-way so long she can’t think to add ’em no other way.