"He had been playin' out o' doors bare-feeted"

"Any question he missed was to be passed on to them thet had been
grad'jatin' so fast"

"'This orange is the earth, an' this here apple is the sun'"

"What could be sweeter 'n little Mary Elizabeth?"

"When I set here by myself on this po'ch so much these days an' think"

"Seem like a person don't no mo''n realize he's a descendant befo' he's
a' ancestor"







SONNY

A CHRISTMAS GUEST


[Illustration: 'B']

Boy, you say, doctor? An' she don't know it yet? Then what 're you
tellin' _me_ for? No, sir--take it away. I don't want to lay my eyes
on it till she's saw it--not if I _am_ its father. She's its _mother_,