Sonny, a Christmas Guest Part 6

gettin' Tommy's feelin's hurted! Which I ain't a-sayin' it on account o'

Sonny bein' my boy, but it seems to me was a mighty unfair advantage.

No boy's feelin's ain't got no right to be that tender--an' a goat is the last thing on earth thet could be injured by a word of mouth.

Sonny's pets an' beasts has made a heap o' commotion in school one way an' another, somehow. Ef 't ain't his goats it's somethin' else.

Sir! Sonny's pets? Oh, they're all sorts. He ain't no ways partic'lar thess so a thing is po' an' miser'ble enough. That's about all he seems to require of anything.

He don't never go to school hardly 'thout a garter-snake or two or a lizard or a toad-frog somewheres about him. He's got some o' the little girls at school that nervous thet if he thess shakes his little sleeve at 'em they'll squeal, not knowin' what sort o' live critter'll jump out of it.

Most of his pets is things he's got by their bein' hurted some way.

One of his toad-frogs is blind of a eye. Sonny rescued him from the old red rooster one day after he had nearly pecked him to death, an' he had him hoppin' round the kitchen for about a week with one eye bandaged up.

When a hurted critter gits good an' strong he gen'ally turns it loose ag'in; but ef it stays puny, why he reg'lar 'dopts it an' names it Jones. That's thess a little notion o' his, namin' his pets the family name.

The most outlandish thing he ever 'dopted, to my mind, is that old yaller cat. That was a miser'ble low-down stray cat thet hung round the place a whole season, an' Sonny used to vow he was goin' to kill it, 'cause it kep' a-ketchin' the birds.

Well, one day he happened to see him thess runnin' off with a young mockin'-bird in his mouth, an' he took a brickbat an' he let him have it, an' of co'se he dropped the bird an' tumbled over--stunted. The bird it got well, and Sonny turned him loose after a few days; but that cat was hurted fatal. He couldn't never no mo' 'n drag hisself around from that day to this; an' I reckon ef Sonny was called on to give up every pet he's got, that cat would be 'bout the last thing he'd surrender. He named him Tommy Jones, an' he never goes to school of a mornin', rain or s.h.i.+ne, till Tommy Jones is fed f'om his own plate with somethin' he's left for him special.

Of co'se Sonny he's got his faults, which anybody 'll tell you; but th'

ain't a dumb brute on the farm but'll foller him around--an' the n.i.g.g.e.r Dicey, why, she thinks they never was such another boy born into the world--that is, not no human child.

An' wife an' me--

But of co'se he's ours.

I don't doubt thet he ain't constructed thess exac'ly ez the school-teachers would have him, ef they had their way. Sometimes I have thought I'd like his disposition eased up a little, myself, when he taken a stand ag'in my jedgment or wife's.

Takin' 'em all round, though, the teachers has been mighty patient with him.

At one school the teacher did take him out behind the school-house one day to whup him; an' although teacher is a big strong man, Sonny's mighty wiry an' quick, an' some way he slipped his holt, an' fo' teacher could ketch him ag'in he had clumb up the lightnin'-rod on to the roof thess like a cat. An' teacher he felt purty sh.o.r.e of him then, 'cause he 'lowed they wasn't no other way to git down (which they wasn't, the school bein' a steep-sided buildin'), an' he 'd wait for him.

So teacher he set down close-t to the lightnin'-rod to wait. He wouldn't go back in school without him, cause he didn't want the child'en to know he'd got away. So down he set; but he hadn't no mo' 'n took his seat sca'cely when he heerd the child'en in school roa'in' out loud, laughin'

fit to kill theirselves.

He lowed at first thet like ez not the monitor was cuttin' up some sort o' didoes, the way monitors does gen'ally, so he waited a-while; but it kep' a-gittin' worse, so d'rectly he got up, an' he went in to see what the excitement was about; an'lo and beholt! Sonny had slipped down the open chimbly right in amongst 'em--come out a-grinnin', with his face all sooted over, an', says he, "Say, fellers," says he, "I run up the lightnin'-rod, an' he's a-waitin' for me to come down." An' with that he went an' gethered up his books, deliberate, an'fetched his hat, an'

picked up a nest o' little chimbly-swallows he had dislodged in comin'

down (all this here it happened thess las' June), an' he went out an'

harnessed up his goat-wagon, an' got in. An' thess ez he driv' out the school-yard into the road the teacher come in, an' he see how things was.

Of co'se sech conduct ez that is worrisome, but I don't see no, to say, bad principle in it. Sonny ain't got a bad habit on earth, not a-one.

They'll ever' one o' the teachers tell you that. He ain't never been knowed to lie, an' ez for improper language, why he wouldn't know how to select it. An' ez to tattlin' at home about what goes on in school, why, he never has did it. The only way we knowed about him comin' down the school-house chimbly was wife went to fetch his dinner to him, an' she found it out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He had been playin' out o' doors bare-feeted."]

She knowed he had went to that school in the mornin', an' when she got there at twelve o'clock, why he wasn't there, an' of co'se she questioned the teacher, an' he thess told her thet Sonny had been present at the mornin' session, but thet he was now absent. An' the rest of it she picked out o' the child'en.

Oh, no, sir; she don't take his dinner to him reg'lar--only some days when she happens to have somethin' extry good, or maybe when she 'magines he didn't eat hearty at breakfast. The school-child'en they always likes to see her come, because she gen'ally takes a extry lot o'

fried chicken thess for him to give away. He don't keer much for nothin'

but livers an' gizzards, so we have to kill a good many to get enough for him; an' of co'se the fryin' o' the rest of it is mighty little trouble.

Sonny is a bothersome child one way: he don't never want to take his dinner to school with him. Of co'se thess after eatin' breakfas' he don't feel hungry, an' when wife does coax him to take it, he'll seem to git up a appet.i.te walkin' to school, an' he'll eat it up 'fo' he gits there.

Sonny's got a mighty n.o.ble disposition, though, take him all round.

Now, the day he slipped down that chimbly an' run away he wasn't a bit fl.u.s.tered, an' he didn't play hookey the balance of the day neither. He thess went down to the crik, an' washed the soot off his face, though they say he didn't no more 'n smear it round, an' then he went down to Miss Phoebe's school, an' stayed there till it was out. An' she took him out to the well, an' washed his face good for him. But nex' day he up an' went back to Mr. Clark's school--walked in thess ez pleasant an'

kind, an' taken his seat an' said his lessons--never th'owed it up to teacher at all. Now, some child'en, after playin' off on a teacher that a-way would a' took advantage, but he never. It was a fair fight, an'

Sonny whupped, an' that's all there was to it; an' he never put on no air about it.

Wife did threaten to go herself an' make the teacher apologize for gittin' the little feller all sooted up an' sp'iln' his clo'es; but she thought it over, an' she decided thet she wouldn't disturb things ez long ez they was peaceful. An', after all, he didn't exac'ly send him down the chimbly nohow, though he provoked him to it.

Ef Sonny had 'a' fell an' hurted hisself, though, in that chimbly, I'd 'a' helt that teacher responsible, sh.o.r.e.

Sonny says hisself thet the only thing he feels bad about in that chimbly business is thet one o' the little swallers' wings was broke by the fall. Sonny's got him yet, an' he's li'ble to keep him, cause he'll never fly. Named him Swally Jones, an' reg'lar 'dopted him soon ez he see how his wing was.

Sonny's the only child I ever see in my life thet could take young chimbly-swallers after their fall an' make em' live. But he does it reg'lar. They ain't a week pa.s.ses sca'cely but he fetches in some hurted critter an' works with it. Dicey says thet half the time she's afeerd to step around her cook-stove less'n she'll step on some critter thet's crawled back to life where he's put it under the stove to hatch or thaw out, which she bein' bare-feeted, I don't wonder at.

An' he has did the same way at school purty much. It got so for a-while at one school thet not a child in school could be hired to put his hand in the wood-box, not knowin' ef any piece o' bark or old wood in it would turn out to be a young alligator or toad-frog thawin' out. Teacher hisself picked up a chip, reckless, one day, an' it hopped up, and knocked off his spectacles. Of cose it wasn't no chip. Hopper-toad frogs an' wood-bark chips, why, they favors consider'ble--lay 'em same side up.

It was on account o' her takin' a interest in all his little beasts an' varmints thet he first took sech a notion to Miss Phoebe Kellog's school. Where any other teacher would scold about sech things ez he'd fetch in, why, she'd encourage him to bring 'em to her; an' she'd fix a place for 'em, an' maybe git out some book tellin' all about 'em, an'

showin' pictures of 'em.

She's had squir'l-books, an' bird-books, an' books on nearly every sort o' wild critter you'd think too mean to _put_ into a book, at that school, an' give the child'en readin'-lessons on 'em an' drawin'-lessons an' clay-moldin' lessons.

Why, Sonny has did his alligator so nach'l in clay thet you'd most expec' to see it creep away. An' you'd think mo' of alligators forever afterward, too. An' ez to readin', he never did take no interest in learnin' how to read out'n them school-readers, which he declares don't no more'n git a person interested in one thing befo' they start on another, an' maybe start _that_ in the middle.

The other teachers, they makes a heap o' fun o' Miss Phoebe's way o' school-teachin', 'cause she lets the child'en ask all sorts of outlandish questions, an' make pictures in school hours, an' she don't requi' 'em to fold their arms in school, neither.

Maybe she is foolin' their time away. I can't say ez I exac'ly see how she's a workin' it to edjercate 'em that a-way. I had to set with my arms folded eight hours a day in school when I was a boy, to learn the little I know, an' wife she got her edjercation the same way. An' we went clean thoo f'om the _a-b abs_ an' _e-b ebs_ clair to the end o' the blue-back speller.

An' we learned to purnounce a heap mo' words than either one of us has ever needed to know, though there has been times, sech ez when my wife's mother took the phthisic an' I had the asthma, thet I was obligated to write to the doctor about it, thet I was thankful for my experience in the blue-back speller. Them was our brag-words, phthisic and asthma was.

They's a few other words I've always hoped to have a chance to spell in the reg'lar co'se of life, sech ez y-a-c-h-t, yacht, but I suppose, livin' in a little inland town, which a yacht is a boat, a person couldn't be expected to need sech a word--less'n he went travelin'.

I've often thought thet ef at the Jedgment the good Lord would only examine me an' all them thet went to school in my day, in the old blue-back speller 'stid o' tacklin' us on the weak pints of our pore mortal lives, why, we'd stand about ez good a chance o' gettin' to heaven ez anybody else. An' maybe He will--who knows?

But ez for book-readin', wife an' me aint never felt called on to read no book save an' exceptin' the Holy Scriptures--an', of cose, the seed catalogues.

An' here Sonny, not quite twelve year old, has read five books thoo, an'

some of 'em twice-t an' three times over. His "Robinson Crusoe" shows mo' wear'n tear'n what my Testament does, I'm ashamed to say. I've done give Miss Phoebe free license to buy him any book she wants him to have, an' he's got 'em all 'ranged in a row on the end o' the mantel-shelf.

Quick ez he'd git thoo readin' a book, of co'se wife she'd be for dustin' it off and puttin' up on the top closet shelf where a book nach'ally belongs; but seem like Sonny he wants to keep 'em in sight.

So wife she'd worked a little lace shelf-cover to lay under 'em, an'

we've hung our framed marriage-c'tificate above 'em, an' the corner looks right purty, come to see it fixed up.

Sir? Oh, no; we ain't took him from none o' the other schools yet. He's been goin' to Miss Phoebe's reg'lar now--all but the exhibition an'

picnic days in the other schools--for nearly five months, not countin'