“Then I tried to reach her womanly compassion by tearfully expoundin’ how I’d miss my cut of plug a day; I never touched her. Hers was a new religion. It had a different figger on the back from any I’d had dealt to me before. Seems it weren’t a sin to chew, but it was the control I’d lost over myself that put me in the hole. I had just to git command of my mind and everything would come at me, like a North Ca’lina town’s nigger’s dogs chasin’ a three-legged cat up an alley. “‘But ma’am,’ say I, ‘I’ve knocked off before; an’, as for control over my mind, durin’ the hull spell me an’ Star Plug was separated, friends had to hold me to prevent me goin’ in an’ robbin’ my own grip. Control of my mind,’ says I, fightin’ noble, ‘why, you could ’a’ sicked a burglar on me, an’ he couldn’t have found no such thing on my person. I didn’t have no mind. I walked up an’ down, day and night, in that man’s town, like a ravin’ maniac stupefied by his halloocinashuns. All that passed beneath my shinin’ dome was: “Oh for a chew! Oh for a chew! Oh for a choo-choo-choo-choo! Whoeep! Brakes!” And when the cars went over the switch or a cayuse cantered up, they said: “Terbackker, terbackker, terbackker,” to my famished ears. All I wished was that the houses was built of plug, and all I thought of was that I could get earnest with an ax. That’s _all_ I _could_ think--all!’ “‘But you must use the control!’ says she, eager. [Illustration: “‘I will not use terbackker,’ says little Zekey Scraggs.” Page 219] “‘You mean, ma’am,’ I says, ‘that I must seek out a quiet place, clench my fists, grind my teeth to a feather-edge and strain my suspenders to the bustin’ point in one calamitous effort to think I’m not thinking?’ “‘Precisely!’ says she, victorious. ‘You Western men have such a ready grip on essentials that it is a delight to be your guide.’ “‘Well, Uncle Tom and the dogs a-bitin’ him!’ says I to myself. ‘Lead on!’ I took off my hat aloud and bowed to within two of my noses to the ground. ‘To be able to foller so gentle and able a guide straight to perdition is a joy,’ says I. ‘I quit the class of roominants for two weeks. I will not use terbackker. No!’ says little Zekey Scraggs. ‘There’s my hand on it, ma’am.’ “And she just turned pink with joy. She was an awful nice little gal. Only she was so jam-full of knowledge that it was hard for her to understand things. “Having put up this job on myself, I went to our storekeep’ and called for my time. I knew I’d need bright lights and excitement for a while. I begun to feel already that a chew wouldn’t go bad. “There was the storekeep’ gazin’ fixedly at a book; his lips was movin’, but he seemed in a kind of rapture. When I hollered to him, he jumped all over and barked at me like a dog. At the same time he grabbed up a cigareet, stuck it in his mouth, took it out, looked at it and fired it down again. “A light broke on me. ‘So she got you, too?’ says I.