“ ‘Drot the dore,’ ses I, ‘whar’s my hat?’
“But nobody said nothin’, so I begun to think it war best to git out the best way I could, and never mind my hat. Well, I got through the parlor dor, after rakin’ my shins three or four times agin the chairs, and was falin’ along through the entry for the frunt dore; but somehow I was so flustrated that I tuk the rong way, and bimeby, kerslash I went, rite over Miss Stallinses spinnin’-wheel onto the floor! I hurt myself a good deal; but that didn’t make me half so mad as to hear then confounded gals a gigglin’ and laughin’ at me.
“Oh!” said one of them, (it was Mis Kesiak, for I knowed her voice) “there goes mother’s wheel! My Lord!”
I tried to set the thing up, but it seemed to have more’n twenty legs, and wouldn’t stand up nohow—maybe it was broke. I went out of the dore, but I hadn’t got down the steps, when bow! wow! wow! comes four or five infurnal grate big coon-dogs rite at me.
“Git out! git out! hellow Cato! call off your dogs,” ses I, as loud as I could.
But Cato was sound asleep, and if I hadn’t a run back into the hall, and got out of the frunt way as quick as I could, them devils would o’ chawed my bones for true.
When I got to my horse, I felt like a feller just out of a hornet’s nest; and I reckon I went home a little of the quickest. Next mornin’ old Miss Stallins sent my hat by a little nigger; but I hain’t seed Mary Stallins sense. Now you see what comes of snuffin’ ashes over a soft wood fire. No more from
Your frend, till deth,
Jos. Jones.