"'Which as I states yeretofore, the Sterett system is the patriarchal system, an' one an' all we yields deference to my grandfather as the onchallenged chief of the tribe. To 'llustrate this: One day my father, who's been tryin' out a two-year-old on our little old quarter-mile track, starts for The Hill, takin' me an' a nigger jockey, an' a-leadin' of the said two-year-old racer along. Once we arrives at my grandfather's, my father leaves us all standin' in the yard and reepairs into the house. The next minute him an' my grandfather comes out. They don't say nothin', but my grandfather goes all over the two-year-old with eyes an' hand for mighty likely ten minutes. At last he straightens up an' turns on my father with a face loaded to the muzzle with rage. "'"Willyum Greene Sterett," he says, conferrin' on my parent his full name, the same bein' a heap ominous; "Willyum Greene Sterett, you've brought that thing to The Hill to beat my Golddust." "'"Yes," says my father, mighty steady, "an' I'll go right out on your track now, father, an' let that black boy ride him an' I'll gamble you all a thousand dollars that that two-year-old beats Golddust." "'" Willyum Greene Sterett," says my grandfather, lookin' at my father an' beginnin' to bile, "I've put up with a heap from you. You was owdacious as a child, worthless as a yooth, an' a spend-thrift as a young man grown; an' a score of times I've paid your debts as was my dooty as the head of the House of Sterett. But you reserves it for your forty-ninth year, an' when I'm in my seventy-ninth year, to perform your crownin' outrage. You've brought that thing to The Hill to beat my Golddust. Now let me tell you somethin', an' it'll be water on your wheel a whole lot, to give heed to that I says. You get onto your hoss, an' you get your child Willyum onto his hoss, an' you get that nigger boy onto his hoss, an' you get off this Hill. An' as you go, let me give you this warnin'. If you-all ever makes a moccasin track in the mud of my premises ag'in, I'll fill you full of buckshot." "'An' as I says, to show the veneration in which my grandfather is held, thar's not another yeep out o' any of us. With my father in the lead, we files out for home; an' tharafter the eepisode is never mentioned. "'An' now,' says Colonel Sterctt, 'as we-all is about equipped to report joodiciously as to the merits of the speshul cask of Valley Tan we've been samplin', I'll bring my narratif to the closin' chapters in the life of this grand old man. Thar's this to be observed: The Sterett fam'ly is eminent for two things: it gets everything it needs; an' it never gets it till it needs it. Does it need a gun, or a hoss, or a drink, the Sterett fam'ly proceeds with the round-up. It befalls that when my grandfather passes his eightieth year, he decides that he needs religion. "'" It's about time," he says, "for me to begin layin' up a treasure above. I'm goin' on eighty-one an' my luck can't last forever."