“Even mam, she hev ter ’low ez coons ain’t lackin’ fur head-stuffin’,” he remarked, as he stood with his arms akimbo. “You-uns know the kind o’ ways mam hev gin herself over ter—a-sweepin’, an’ a-scourin’, an’ a-cleanin’, till I actially looks ter see ef she won’t take ter washin’ the chickens’ faces an’ curryin’ the cat. Waal, Cousin Eph Bates, he stopped thar one day with his pet coon. An’ mam she made him welcome an’ set out the table. An’ mam, she ’lowed the coon mus’ be hongry, so she called it an’ gin it a nice piece o’ corn dodger. What’s that coon do?” he cried, his eyes widening with the interest of the recital. “Popped up on the aidge o’ the drinkin’ pail an’ ondertook ter wash that thar piece o’ dodger ’twixt his fore paws, ’fore he would eat it. I wish ye could hev seen mam’s face. I laffed till I like ter drapped in my tracks. An’ Cousin Eph—he jes’ hollered. An’ mam, she hed furgot, ef she ever knowed, how coons do; she say, ‘Cousin Eph, ye needn’t bring no sech pertic’lar vis’tor ter my house ag’in—a-washin’ the clean vittles _I_ gin him.’ Thar sot the coon, ez onconsarned, a-washin’ his hands an’ a-washin’ the dodger.” Skimpy suited the action to the words and teetered up and down, washing his paws and an imaginary piece of corn dodger. “I laffed an’ laffed. That coon like ter been the death o’ me ’fore he got away from thar.” “I know that thar coon o’ Eph Bates’s,” cried Ike. “I stayed up ter his house one night along o’ his chill’n an’ ’twar bright moonlight whenst I went ter bed in the roof-room, but after a while I woke up an’ I ’lowed ’twar a hailstorm goin’ on outside on the roof. Ye never hearn sech a skedaddlin’ up an’ down them clapboards. Kem ter find out, ’twar nuthin’ but the coon a-playin’ tag with his shadder in the moonlight.” “Oh, he’s a powerful tricky, Mister Coon air,” Skimpy declared, his freckled face distended with relish of Mr. Coon’s smartness. “Mam an’ Cousin Eph hed sot tharselfs down afore the fire an’ got ter talkin’ ’bout’n the folkses in the Cove, an’ how mighty few o’ ’em had enny sech religion ez they purtended ter hev, when mam she put her hand in her pocket fur ter git her knittin’. An’ there warn’t nuthin’ in her pocket but a ball o’ yarn. An’ she looked up, an’ thar war a great long e-end o’ it a-stretchin’ ter the door. An’ thar on the steps sot Mister Coon with them knittin’ needles, an’ the sock, a-holdin’ ’em like he war knittin’, ez onconsarned—oh my! I laffed ag’in.” “I’ll bet yer mam didn’t laff,” said an intimate of the family.