“’Pears like you ain’t a mite peart this morning, Grover Cleveland; you got something on your mind?” The child bored the soil with his toes: “I—wasn’t in bed _all_ night, gran’daddy, not _every minute_, I wasn’t.” “You been a-walkin’ in your sleep again?” The child nodded guiltily and a very awkward pause ensued. Gran’daddy looked serious, but as soon as distressful symptoms began to develop in the little culprit, he applied, as usual, the healing balm of consolation. “I wouldn’t take-on about it, Grover Cleveland, not a mite, I wouldn’t, for you’re plumb sure to outgrow it. Gran’daddy used to be up to them same tricks but he’s outgrowed ’em. I jes’ go to bed and I lay there as firm as a island in a goose pond and you couldn’t drag me out—not with Butterfly and Bonaparte you couldn’t—not unless something was the matter with Grover Cleveland and _he_ wanted me in the night; if he did, if he ever does, I’ll shoot out of that bed like lightning out of a thunder cloud.” And so he coaxed and petted until the shamed little face was ready to look the world squarely in the eyes again. “Where was you at, last night, eh?” “When I come to, I was up to Sundown Hill where them wa’nut trees is.” “Was you ’way off there, grandson?” Gran’daddy settled to a seat on a wagon tongue and put a snug arm about the boy who grew suddenly voluble in the recollection of stirring times. “Hi, gran’daddy! Cap’n Sumter, _he_ walks in his sleep jes’ like me! He does a heap of things in his sleep! An’ he talks right out loud too; that’s a heap worse’n me, ain’t it?” “If he does it, it’s a heap worse’n you. Did you meet up with him last night?” “Why he was a-doin’ mischief, _he_ was! He was choppin’ up that ar curly wa’nut and every lick he hit, he says, ‘_Now_ will you bring twelve-hundred dollars for veneerin,’ and he chopped big holes in it!” “_That curly?_” “Ye-e-s, that ar one that lays furtherest up the hill.” The old man loosened his hold of the lad and rose slowly to his feet, a look on his face that Grover Cleveland had never seen there before and that he could only vaguely interpret, but it made him feel sorry for his companion in misery. So he took his grandfather’s hand and as they walked toward the house he discoursed: “He can’t help doin’ things in his sleep for he was borned that-a-way, and he can’t help bein’ mad all the time for he was borned that-a-way too; and I reckon he feels mighty shamed of hisself now—that’s the way I feel.” Receiving no response he squeezed the hand he held in both his own demanding recognition of his reiterated sentiment: “It’s powerful mizzable to be borned with ways that you can’t help.” And gran’daddy replied: “So it is, Grover Cleveland, so it is.” * * * * *