"Queer, sure. I don't see how he could help it."
"Me neither. Dad was always mad, though, and used to aboose me shameful. The fust thing in my life that I can remember was of gettin' a lickin'."
"What was it for?"
"Nothin' worth tellin'. I was a little feller then, and one day heated the poker red-hot, and run it down grandmother's back. But there! didn't he lam me for that! Always was whippin' me. School-teacher was just as bad. Licked me like blazes the fust day."
"Did he lick you for nothin'?"
"Purty near. Didn't do any thing except to put a handful of gunpowder in a dry inkstand, and then touch it off under his chair. Haw! haw! haw! didn't he jump? and oh gracious!" he added, in a solemn tone, "didn't I jump, too, when he fell on me."
"You seem to have been about the biggest scamp in the country. Why did he whip you this last time when you run away?"
"Hadn't any more reason than he had at other times. I tried to take Ann Parsons home from singing-school, and she wouldn't let me. That was the reason."
"He couldn't have whipped you for that."
"Well, it all come from that. I followed her home, and jest give her my opinion of her, and when her old man undertook to say any thing, I jest pitched in and walloped him."