I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used
To be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was
Scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken – that is, after the
First jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so
Unexpected; but right away after I see I warn’t scared of him worth
Bothring about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and
Greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he
Was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up
Whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it
Was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick,
A white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree-toad white, a fish-belly
White. As for his clothes – just rags, that was all. He had one ankle
Resting on t’other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his
Toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying
On the floor – an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
Tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was
Up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By
And by he says:
“Starchy clothes – very. You think you’re a good deal of a big-bug, DON’T
You?”
“Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t,” I says.
“Don’t you give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve put on
Considerable many frills since I been away. I’ll take you down a peg
Before I get done with you. You’re educated, too, they say – can read and
Write. You think you’re better’n
your father, now, don’t you, because he
Can’t? I’LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such
Hifalut’n foolishness, hey? – who told you you could?”
“The widow. She told me.”
“The widow, hey? – and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
About a thing that ain’t none of her business?”
“Nobody never told her.”
“Well, I’ll learn her how to meddle. And looky here – you drop that
School, you hear? I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
Over his own father and let on to be better’n what HE is. You lemme
Catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
Couldn’t read, and she couldn’t write, nuther, before she died. None of
The family couldn’t before THEY died. I can’t; and here you’re
A-swelling yourself up like this. I ain’t the man to stand it – you hear?
Say, lemme hear you read.”
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
Wars. When I’d read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
With his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
“It’s so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
Here; you stop that putting on frills. I won’t have it. I’ll lay for
You, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I’ll tan you good.
First you know you’ll get religion, too. I never see such a son.”
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and
Says:
“What’s this?”
“It’s something they give me for learning my lessons good.”
He tore it up, and says:
“I’ll give you something better – I’ll give you a cowhide.”
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
“AIN’T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a
Look’n’-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor – and your own father
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