Plain Mary Smith

up all round. Very likely that's it, but it's a rocky scheme for the Little Results. When my mother married my fa

comes for mother, hollering and whimpering, showing her the paw and telling her all about it, sure she'd understand. And she did. 'Twixt her and the brutes was some kind of s

he crowd he traveled with, I don't know. He had to have it in him to go with them; still, I like to think they led him off. Left to mother's influence, he'd have been a different man-more as I remembered him when I was a little chap. This "church" of his was down on everything that had a touch of color, a pleasant sound, or a laugh in it: all such was wickedness. I remember how I got whaled for kissing Mattie. A boy tha

st particular. First place, I nicknamed him "Canker" and it stuck; next place, one day me and Tom, Mattie's brother, being then about sixteen apiece, come up from swimming and stopped at Anker's patch to pull a turnip. While we sat there, cutting off slices and enjoying it, never thinking of having ha

is mouth, and wiping turnip off his manly brow, "You'll regret

, you'd better run along," says he; "for if t

ast an eye on me, foaming and r'aring, he concluded

ou? That's the facts. He stirred the old man up by things he "really didn't like to tell, you know, but felt it his painful duty"-and so forth. Yes, sir; he made me regret it plenty. You might say he broke our home up. And so, if ever I m

at I bin tolt. I du' know es it be solerd tin; mebbe not. In thet case, of course, it ain't wuth nineteen cents, es I was sayin', but about, about ... well, well, now! I'll tell you what I'll do, ma'am. I'll say fourteen cents and a few of them Baldwins to take the taste out 'n my mouth-can't do no fairer than thet now, kin I? Yassam-well, nuthin' more to-day? Thankee, ma'am." And Eli'd drive

n-i-n' from

erneggs

u be so kin

'em up

I will, w'en we

d erlong terg

ODLE-I-AAAA

ld billy-goat whisker wagging to the tune, was to obtain a pleasant memory. The way tha

m the tavern Saturday nights at the queerest gait you ever saw, playing his accordion and scattering pennies to the kids. I always liked any kind of music; pennies

our Western 'Guls could smear all over the track and never know there'd been an accident, but, man! she looked big to me. And the hostler! Well, I classed him with the lad that hooked half-dollars out of the air at the Sunday-school show, and took a rabbit out of Judge Smalley's hat.

lo,

eet and said,

he top of the switch and says,

ll

all pleasant propositions, so I said "no" and

hed," he says. So I climbe

says he. "You pull tha

ogether and moved the lever a tiny bit. "Chow!" says the old engine, "Chow-chow-chow!" and I near had a fit with pride and scared

ad-bed laid flat against the side of a mountain, with an engine that had wash-tubs for drivers, and was run by winding up by a crank, like the old clock in the hall. Lord! how I whizzed aroun

r harm if I got aboard and moved her up and down the track a foot or two-you see, I'd never had her single-handed. So I started easy, and reversed her, and played around that way for a while, till naturally I got venturesome. One stunt that Jerry and I loved to try was to check her up short with his patent brake. The poor old pusher never got put to bed without being stood on end a half-dozen times; that suggested to me that I'd slam her down on the shed doors and see how near I could come to them without hitting. I backed 'way off, set her on the corner, yanked the throttle, and we boiled for the shed, me as satisfied with myself as could be. I didn't leave much margin for stopping, so there wasn't a lot of track left when I reached down for the brake-lever, and found-it wasn't there! If som

uess at who did it, whether I told or not, and his confidence in me would be a thing of the past-nothing but black clouds o

hen they got ready. That's the kind of resolution I've never been able to keep-I've got to fa

y it was-me stumbling and stuttering while he sat t

n the sound of my words hit my ears with s

ays, "that's ab

. That was out of whooping range from the truth. I hadn't determined to do anything to our name, nor nothin

d run away, and things-" Here again I run down with a buzz. He wasn't paying the least heed to the sense of what I said. It only interrupted him. He sailed right on

sible, as representing the highest style of man-it was his disappointment he poured on me, not his judgment. But then,

when he insisted on talking like Eli Perkins's mule, it simply wasn't pos

here wasn't a man in this county more respected, nor whose word was better thought of on any subject outside of his own family, and that hydrophobia of a doctrine of his. Honest? Why, he was the savings-bank of the place. All the old hayseeds around there turned their surplus in

o be allowed to leave Jerry out of it, but no-that wouldn't do: it would be a lie. I always st

ere shown up into a private room. There sat t

he stood prepared to pay all damages, although he

lying my arms around, and letting 'em know all

on in having made a corking old bust-up of her while I was at it, crept into my discourse. The third man was in an ugly state of liquor. He let out on m

s up on Jerry, while my heart broke entirely. He was about as reasonable toward Jerry as my father had been toward me. T

seem to be born very fast these days, but long may they wave! the good-natured, able kind that feared t

e a sparrow-hawk. If I thought you was in condition to make a speech, I'd feel tolerable cast down. As it is, I advise you to go out and take another snifter,-I appeal from C?sar drunk

loan of your arm, I'll fill your prescription." So off he toddles to the door. When

case; but you're drunk on your own virtue,-may God have mercy on your