“Now Pap use to git off some good uns oncet in a while, but I wasn’t in fer givin’ him the credit. I scatted the whole plan. I didn’t know so much then ez I knows now. Still, sometim’s I ’low that ef it hedn’t ’a’ ben fer Major, I might o’ dissypinted the ole man anyhow. Major was a coon dog, an’ a mighty fine one, bein’ half setter, quarter houn’, an’ last quarter coach. Me an’ him was great buddies. Wherever we went he allus hed an’ eye out fer game. He knowd the seasons, too. Ef it was September he was watchin’ fer squirrels; October, fer patridges; November, rabbits; springtime, girls. It was in the spring ’hen I happened to hear Si Bumbletree speakin’ o’ a petickler fine lot o’ saplin’s fer walkin’ sticks that was growin’ on the chestnut flats at the foot o’ the mo’ntain jest above Andy Horner’s clearin’. So I sais to meself, I sais, it bein’ a fine warm day, I’ll jest mosey up there an’ git me one o’ them staffs. It was a good th’ee mile up the walley an’ over the ridge an’ acrosst the gut, but I found the placet all right an’ cut me a nice straight cane. I was comin’ home, peelin’ off the bark an’ not thinkin’ o’ anything in petickler, ’hen I hear Major givin’ a low growl. I looked up. We was passin’ Horner’s clearin’. There stood the dog, foreleg lifted, tail straight out, nose pintin’ th’oo the blackberry bushes ’long the fence. “‘There is somethin’ pretty important,’ I sais to meself. “An’ with that I walks up to the hedge an’ peeks over. “Settin’ on the groun’, weedin’ the onion-patch, was the prettiest girl I ever laid eyes on. She looked up from een under her sunbonnet outen a pair o’ sparklin’ blue eyes, an’ showed two rosy cheeks with a perk leetle nose atween ’em. Major he hed ducked th’oo a hole in the fence an’ come out on the other side, an’ was standin’ solemn-like, lookin’ at her. All o’ a sudden he begin jumpin’ up an’ down, first on his front legs an’ then on his hint legs, archin’ his neck, waggin’ his tail, an’ showin’ his teeth like he was smilin’ all over. “‘That’s a nice dog you hev,’ sais the girl, kind o’ musical. She had stopped her weedin’ an’ was settin’ up lookin’ at the houn’. “‘Yes,’ sais I, ‘he is a tolable nice animal.’ “Then I thinks to meself, ‘Major seems to like her; I wonder how she’d suit Pap.’ “Soon ez that come into me mind I seen it was time I got out. I turned an’ walked down the road harder than I’d ever walked afore. “That night I couldn’t eat no supper. I’d never felt that same way an’ it worrit me. I knowd no cause fer it, yit I kind o’ thot I didn’t keer whether I lived or died. It worrit Pap too. He ’lowed he’d hev to powwow me. “‘How are ye goin’ to powwow me,’ sais I, ‘’hen ye don’t know what I’m sufferin’ from? What I’ve got ain’t nawthin’, yit I wish it was somethin’ jest to take me mind offen it.’