Just in front of me a great broad-shouldered countryman, with a rainy smell in his cumbrous overcoat, cleared his throat vehemently, looked startled at the sound, and again settled forward, his weedy chin resting on the knuckles of his hands as they tightly clutched the seat before him. And it was like being taken into a childish confidence as the quaint speech continued:-- "I set--while Aunty's washin'--on my little long-leg stool, An' watch the little boys an' girls a-skippin' by to school; An' I peck on the winder, an' holler out an' say: 'Who wants to fight The Little Man at dares you all to-day?' An' nen the boys climbs on the fence, an' little girls peeks through, An' they all says: 'Cause you're so big, you think we're 'feard o' you!' An' nen they yell, an' shake their fist at me, like I shake mine-- They're thist in fun, you know, 'cause I got 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!" "Well," whispered my friend, with rather odd irrelevance, I thought, "of course you see through the scheme of the fellows by this time, don't you?" "I see nothing," said I, most earnestly, "but a poor little wisp of a child that makes me love him so I dare not think of his dying soon, as he surely must! There; listen!" And the plaintive gaiety of the homely poem ran on:-- "At evening, when the ironin' 's done, an' Aunty's fixed the fire, An' filled an' lit the lamp, an' trimmed the wick an' turned it higher, An' fetched the wood all in fer night, an' locked the kitchen door, An' stuffed the ole crack where the wind blows in up through the floor-- She sets the kittle on the coals, an' biles an' makes the tea, An' fries the liver an' the mush, an' cooks a egg fer me, An' sometimes--when I cough so hard--her elderberry wine Don't go so bad fer little boys with 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!" "Look!" whispered my friend, touching me with his elbow. "Look at the Professor!" "Look at everybody!" said I. And the artless little voice went on again half quaveringly:-- "But Aunty's all so childish-like on my account, you see I'm 'most afeard she'll be took down--an' 'at's what bothers ME!-- 'Cause ef my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an' die, I don't know what she'd do in Heaven--till _I_ come, by an' by:-- Fer she's so ust to all my ways, an' ever'thing, you know, An' no one there like me, to nurse an' worry over so!-- 'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong an' fine, They's nary angel 'bout the place with 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!"