THE TAIL END
UNCLE NED he said yesterday did I know what was up. I said the girafts head was upper than any thing. Then he said, Uncle Ned did: “Thats so, Johnny, but what I mean is do you know what is a goin for to happen in this house, right under your 2 eyes?”
Then I looked at my sister to see if she knew, but she was red in the face, like she was a lobster, and I said why didnt she set further away from the fire, but mother she said: “Never mind your sister, Johnny, your uncle is talkin to you, why dont you anser?”
So I told him no, I didn’t know what was goin for to happen, less Billy was a goin to get a lickin, and he said: “That’s a safe guess, but what I mean is you are to have a new brother.”
I said: “Hooray, I vote we name him Tommy!”
Uncle Ned he beganned for to laugh, and mother she said: “Edard, if you have got any thing to say to Johnny why dont you say it like you was a man of sense, Johnny, you hush this minnute, where did Billy put them sizzors, I think baby is awoke, and that roast has got to be took out of the uven fore it burns.” And then she walked out of the room like a thing of life.
When she was gone, and Missy too, Uncle Ned he stoppd laughin and said: “Johnny, you have made a mess of this thing. Its nothin but jest only that your sister is a goin to be married.”
I said would it be for long, and after a while he said: “I give it up, ask me a easier one.”
Last night we had supper late, but I was let stay up, and I et so much frute cake that I fell a sleep in my chair at the table, and what do you bet I dreamed? I thought I was a settin all alone at a other long table, and pretty soon all the animals which I had wrote about come in and set theirselfs down in the chairs. There was a ephalent, and a rhi nosey rose, and a giraft, and a wale, and a hi potamus, and a eagle, and a cammle, and a ostridge, and a big snake, and a rat, and a cow, and a ri nupple dinky, and a dog, and a cracky dile, and a munky, and evry kind of feller which roams the plain. I said to my own self: “I guess this is Noahs ark and its beginnin for to rain.”