Jack has got a middlin’ round face, with eyes of dark blue. A sort of mornin’ glory blue, and at times they are big, that is when he is wonderin’ over sunthin’, or has found out sunthin’. And at times they will be sort o’ half shet up, like mornin’ glories when the sun is too hot. Then is the time when he has been wilted by Hamen and his wife. The fresh, vigorous desire for knowledge born in him, onbeknown to himself, jest as the freshness of the mornin’ glories wuz born in them, withered and too hardly sot down on by the searchin’ rays of misapprehension, ridicule, etc., etc.
When he wuz a little bit of a fellow he would always shet his eyes when he wuz scolded, for half an hour at a time, and walk round with ’em shet. It seemed as if he wuz some disgusted with the world, and wanted to lose sight on’t for a spell. Now he about half shets ’em when he is mortified.
His hair is curly at the ends, it is brown, some like the deep shinin’ brown you have seen in trout brooks, and where the curls kinder crinkle up a streak of gold runs through ’em. His forward is broad and pretty middlin’ white, and high enough, plenty high enough, and the hair hangs down in little short curls over it the most of the time.
Tamer Ann, that’s his Ma, don’t like it, she wants it brushed back tight to show his intellect, and nags at Jack because he don’t keep it back. Sez she in a very cross tone:
“Folks will think you hain’t got any intellect at all if they see your hair all over your forward.”
And I sez, “I wouldn’t worry, Tamer Ann, if the intellect is there it will work out, hair or no hair, and if it hain’t there no amount of plasterin’ the hair back will show it off—I’ve seen it tried.” Sez I in a milder tone, seein’ she looked kinder mad:
“I’ve seen hair brushed back straight from the forward so’s to give a free pass to the intellect, and left long on the neck to entice it out, but it wouldn’t appear, for the reason it wuzn’t there. Don’t you worry about Jack, Tamer Ann, you’ll find his intellect will push its way through them curls—I hain’t a mite afraid on’t.
“And at the same time, Jack,” sez I, for Duty is my companion and I foller her blindly, “you must try to mind your Ma and keep the curls back.”