No; he's goin a-visitin'. Oh, no, sir; we ain't got no New York kin. He's a-goin' all the way to that strange an' distant State to call on a man thet he ain't never see, nor any of his family. He's a gentle man by the name o' Burroughs--John Burroughs. He's a book-writer. The first book thet Sonny set up nights to read was one o' his'n--all about dumb creatures an' birds. Sonny acchilly wo'e that book out a-readin' it. Yas, sir; Sonny says thet ef he could thess take one long stroll th'oo the woods with him, he'd be willin' to walk to New York State if necessary. An' we're a-goin' to let 'im go. The purtiest part about it is thet this here great book-writer has invited him to pay him a visit. Think o' that, will you? Think of a man thet could think up a whole row o' books a-takin' sech a' int'res' in our plain little Arkansas Sonny. But he done it; an' 'mo' 'n that, he remarked in the letter thet it would give him great pleasure to meet the boy thet had so many mutual friends in common with him, or some sech remark. Of co'se, in this he referred to dumb brutes, an' even trees, so Sonny says. Oh, cert'n'y; Sonny writ him first. How would he've knew about Sonny? Miss Phoebe she encouraged him to write the letter, but it was Sonny's first idee. An' the answer, why, he's got it framed an' hung up above his bookshelves between our marriage c'tif'cate an' his diplomy. He's done sent Sonny his picture, too. He's took a-settin' up in a' apple-tree. You can tell from a little thing like that thet a person ain't no dude, an' I like that. We 've put that picture in the front page of the plush album, an' moved the bishop back one page. Sonny has sent him a photograph of all our family took together, an' likely enough he'll have it framed time Sonny arrives there. When he goes, little Mary Elizabeth, why, she's offered to take keer of all his harmless live things till he comes back, an' I s'pose they'll be letters a-passin' back and fo'th. It does seem so funny, when I think about it. 'Pears like thess the other day thet Mis' Wallace fetched little Mary Elizabeth over to look at Sonny, an' he on'y three days old. I ricollec' when she seen 'im she took her little one-year-old finger an' teched 'im on the forehead, an' she says, says she, "Howdy?"--thess that-a-way. I remember we all thought it was so smart. Seemed like ez ef she reelized thet he had thess arrived--an' she had thess learned to say "Howdy," an' she up an' says it. An' she's ap' at speech yet, so Sonny says. She don't say much when wife or I are around, which I think is showin' only right an' proper respec's. Th' ain't nothin' purtier, to my mind, than for a young girl to set up at table with her elders, an' to 'tend strictly to business. Mary Elizabeth'll set th'oo a whole meal, an' sca'cely look up from her plate. I never did see a little girl do it mo' modest.