Oh, no, sir; she don’t take his dinner to him reg’lar—only some days
when she happens to have somethin’ extry good, or maybe when she
’magines he didn’t eat hearty at breakfast. The school-child’en they
always likes to see her come, because she gen’ally takes a extry lot
o’ fried chicken thess for him to give away. He don’t keer much for
nothin’ but livers an’ gizzards, so we have to kill a good many to
get enough for him; an’ of co’se the fryin’ o’ the rest of it is
mighty little trouble.
Sonny is a bothersome child one way: he don’t never want to take his
dinner to school with him. Of co’se thess after eatin’ breakfas’ he
don’t feel hungry, an’ when wife does coax him to take it, he’ll
seem to git up a appetite walkin’ to school, an’ he’ll eat it up
’fo’ he gits there.
Sonny’s got a mighty noble disposition, though, take him all round.
Now, the day he slipped down that chimbly an’ run away he wasn’t a
bit flustered, an’ he didn’t play hookey the balance of the day
neither. He thess went down to the crik, an’ washed the soot off his
face, though they say he didn’t no more ’n smear it round, an’ then
he went down to Miss Phœbe’s school, an’ stayed there till it was
out. An’ she took him out to the well, an’ washed his face good for
him. But nex’ day he up an’ went back to Mr. Clark’s school—walked
in thess ez pleasant an’ kind, an’ taken his seat an’ said his
lessons—never th’owed it up to teacher at all. Now, some child’en,
after playin’ off on a teacher that a-way would a’ took advantage,
but he never. It was a fair fight, an’ Sonny whupped, an’ that’s all
there was to it; an’ he never put on no air about it.
Wife did threaten to go herself an’ make the teacher apologize for
gittin’ the little feller all sooted up an’ sp’ilin’ his clo’es; but
she thought it over, an’ she decided thet she wouldn’t disturb
things ez long ez they was peaceful. An’, after all, he didn’t
exac’ly send him down the chimbly nohow, though he provoked him to
it.
Ef Sonny had ’a’ fell an’ hurted hisself, though, in that chimbly,
I’d ’a’ helt that teacher responsible, shore.
Sonny says hisself thet the only thing he feels bad about in that
chimbly business is thet one o’ the little swallers’ wings was broke
by the fall. Sonny’s got him yet, an’ he’s li’ble to keep him, cause
he’ll never fly. Named him Swally Jones, an’ reg’lar ’dopted him
soon ez he see how his wing was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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