And I kep’ a naggin’ at him, and his Pa and Ma, and Thomas J. and Maggie, and Josiah, till with a tremendous effort I did get that boy into a new suit of clothes and started him off to work for his board and go to school at a place about three miles off. And though he run away five times in as many weeks—twice to come home and three times to go a fishin’—I kep’ on, and by argument, and persuasion, and a new jack-knife, and a coaxin’ him up, and persuadin’ the folks to try him a little longer, I got him quelled down, and he begun to go easier in the harness, and stiddier. And his teacher sez “he will make a smart boy yet.” So I see jest what I always knew wuz a fact, “that while the lamp holds out to burn the vilest sinner may return.” And if I wuz a goin’ to sing that him, I would omit two words in the last stanza, and for the words “vilest sinner” I would sing “shiftless creeter.” For these two words are what will apply to his hull family, root and branch, specially the roots. Shiftless, ornary, no account, father and mother both; and bein’ full of shiftless, no account qualities, and bein’ married, what could they do, or be expected to do, but bring into the world a lot of still shiftlesser, no accounter creeters? Inheritin’ shiftlessness, and lazyness, and improvidence on both sides, with their own individual lazyness and no accountness added, what can we expect of these offsprings? But still I see in the case of St. Luke, as in the words of the him I quoted, that there is in education and the wholesome restraints of proper livin’ and trainin’ a hope for them—for the poor blacks and the poor whites, for the poor whites are jest as shiftless, jest as ignorant, and jest as no account. [Illustration: “THE BIG PIAZZA.” ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIII. ONE mornin’ we wuz all a settin’ out on the big piazza, for it wuz a cloudless day, and it wuz exceedingly pleasant out there. Snow wuz a settin’ to one side a playin’ with her little dolly that I had carried down to her—a nice one, with real hair, and very round blue eyes and red cheeks. I bought it at Loontown, at a expense of over seventy-five cents, and dressed it myself, with a little of Philury’s help about the boddist waist. Its dress wuz pink cambrick trimmed heavy with white linen lace—it wuz some I had on a nightcap, but it wuz so firm it had wore the nightcap out. It wuz a very good and amiable-lookin’ doll when we had got it all trimmed off, and Snow thought her eyes on it. She had named it to once Samantha Maggie Tirzah Ann. “After the hull caboodle on us,” as Josiah said; but at my request she called it Dolly. Good land! I thought I never could hear her a goin’ round a talkin’ about Samantha Maggie Tirzah Ann. The idee! It would have been too much for her.