“I—wasn’t in bed all night, gran’daddy, not every minute, I wasn’t.”
“You been a-walkin’ in your sleep again?”
The child nodded guiltily and a very awkward pause ensued. Gran’daddy looked serious, but as soon as distressful symptoms began to develop in the little culprit, he applied, as usual, the healing balm of consolation.
“I wouldn’t take-on about it, Grover Cleveland, not a mite, I wouldn’t, for you’re plumb sure to outgrow it. Gran’daddy used to be up to them same tricks but he’s outgrowed ’em. I jes’ go to bed and I lay there as firm as a island in a goose pond and you couldn’t drag me out—not with Butterfly and Bonaparte you couldn’t—not unless something was the matter with Grover Cleveland and he wanted me in the night; if he did, if he ever does, I’ll shoot out of that bed like lightning out of a thunder cloud.” And so he coaxed and petted until the shamed little face was ready to look the world squarely in the eyes again.
“Where was you at, last night, eh?”
“When I come to, I was up to Sundown Hill where them wa’nut trees is.”
“Was you ’way off there, grandson?” Gran’daddy settled to a seat on a wagon tongue and put a snug arm about the boy who grew suddenly voluble in the recollection of stirring times.
“Hi, gran’daddy! Cap’n Sumter, he walks in his sleep jes’ like me! He does a heap of things in his sleep! An’ he talks right out loud too; that’s a heap worse’n me, ain’t it?”
“If he does it, it’s a heap worse’n you. Did you meet up with him last night?”
“Why he was a-doin’ mischief, he was! He was choppin’ up that ar curly wa’nut and every lick he hit, he says, ‘Now will you bring twelve-hundred dollars for veneerin,’ and he chopped big holes in it!”