The talk around the table went on and on. I got so sleepy I couldn't listen to what Mama and Papa and Grandpa Thad and all my big brothers and sisters were saying. Not till Wiley started telling about school did I rub my eyes good, yawn, and try to pay attention again.
"School just ain't no fun, this year. The new teacher don't never whip a soul! Does he, Mierd?"
"No."
"Not even the Bailey boys?"
"No," Mierd told Walker, "they don't seem so bad no more."
"You mean those big rascals haven't set fire to the schoolhouse this year?"
"No. First day of school they hid a dead rat in the teacher's desk, but since then they ain't done nothing. And you know what?"
"What?"
"Mister Shepherd won't ever make Bud, the oldest one, read. He's been in the third reader ever since I can remember, but every morning when it's time for the little kids in the third reader to go up front to the recitation bench, the teacher will say, 'Bud, looks to me like the fire's half out. Would you mind tending to the heater?' So Bud goes out behind the schoolhouse to the woodpile and brings in a turn of wood and pokes up the fire."
"Yeah, but you know what I found out just yesterday?" Wiley asked. "Wallace Goode told me that every Saturday morning Mister Shepherd rides over to the Bailey house and goes hunting with them boys. And Wallace says he's learning all three of 'em how to read plum good, while he walks through the woods with 'em!