I nodded. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, as she sat down on a chair and fanned herself with her handkerchief; “I like to have never got upstairs.” I smiled and nodded. “You see that boy thar?” she inquired after a while. “Your son, I suppose?” I answered; “nice-looking lad.” “Yes, he’s smart as a fox. There isn’t a thing he don’t know. Why, he isn’t but eight, and he composes poetry, writes letters, and plays tunes on the fiddle!” “You ought to be proud of him,” I said. “Wall, we kinder hope he’ll turn out well,” she answered. “Come up here, John Quincy, and speak that piece about that boy who stood on the busted deck.” “I won’t!” replied the boy in a positive tone. “He’s a little bashful, you see,” giving me an apologetical smile. “He’s rid fourteen miles this morning, and he doesn’t feel well, anyhow; I shouldn’t wonder if he was troubled with worums.” “Worms be blowed!” replied John Quincy, chewing away at his hat. “He’s awful skeard when he’s among strangers,” she went on; “but he’ll git over it in a short time. What I cum in for was to see if you wouldn’t take him and make a head-writer of him.” “I don’t want to be a durned old bald-headed head-writer!” said John Quincy, picking his teeth with my scissors. “The young never knows what’s good for ’em,” she went on. “He wants to be a preacher, or a great lawyer, or a big doctor; but he seems to take to writing, and we thought we’d make a head-writer of him. I don’t sopose he’d earn over five or six dollars and board a week for the first year, but I’ve bin told that Gen’ral Jackson didn’t get half that when he begun.” “Madam,” I commenced, as she stopped for breath, “I’d like to take the boy. He looks as smart as a steel trap, and no doubt he’ll turn out a great man.” “Then you’ll take him?” “If you agree as to terms.” “What is them ter-ums?” “You see my left eye is out?” “Yes.” “Well, your son can never become a great writer unless you put his left eye out. If you will think back you will remember that you never saw a great writer whose left eye was not out. This is a matter of economy. A one-eyed writer only needs half as much light as a man with two eyes, and he isn’t half so apt to discover hair-pins in his butter, and buttons in his oyster soup. The best way to put his eye out is to jab a red-hot needle into it.” “Good grashus!” she exclaimed. “And you observe that I am bald-headed? You may think that my baldness results from scalp disease, but such is not the case. When a head-writer is bothered to get an idea he scratches his head. Scratching the hair wouldn’t do any good; it’s the scalp he must agitate. The hair is therefore pulled out with a pair of pincers, in order that a man can get right down to the scalp at once, and save time.” “Can that be possible?”