“Naw,” Skimpy admitted. “Mam, she’s mighty sober-sided. She’d like the coon better ef he wore spec’s an’ cut wood. Cousin Eph, he axed her how many rows that coon knit. An’ mam, she said—‘_None!_ He drug two needles bodaciously out an’ spiled fower rows.’ Mam ’lowed ez she thought she hed the mos’ mischievious created critter—meanin’ me—but she said she b’lieved Cousin Eph mought take the prem_ium_. An’ Cousin Eph, he said enny time she war minded ter swap he’d trade the coon fur me. An’ mam, she cut her eye round at me an’ tole me I hed better mend my manners; the mounting would talk mightily ’bout me ef I war traded off fur a coon ’thout enny boot.” “That thar mus’ be the same coon ez Cousin Eph Bates fotched along o’ him ter the store when he kem ter trade, las’ summer,” said Obadiah, the eldest Sawyer. “An’ dad, he tole Cousin Eph ter holp hisself. An’ nobody noticed the coon till Cousin Eph war ready ter go, an’ tuk ter huntin’ fur him. I don’t reckon that coon could surely hev thunk ez dad meant it fur _him_ whenst he told Cousin Eph ter holp hisself. But leastwise the coon done it; he holped _his_-self. They fund him propped up on the aidge o’ the sugar bar’l, an’ they say the way his whiskers war gormed with sugar war a sight ter be seen. He hedn’t no expression ter his face, an’ he looked plumb cross-eyed with pleasure. Sugar in his paws, too, and dad kerried on like he war mighty nigh demented. An’ he wanted Cousin Eph ter pay for that sugar the coon hed eat, an’ said he wanted that thar coon’s skin. But Cousin Eph, he snatched his coon up under his arm an’ ’lowed he mought ez well try ter trade fur one o’ his chill’n’s hides. I b’lieve he gin dad some money or suthin’, though. He sot out arter that with his coon fur home.”