Is kivered with my blood.

"'You-all can see from that speciment that our schoolmaster ain't
simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no sir, he
means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it
jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I
finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the
brim!

"'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he
uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says,
on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into
talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I
explains yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a
shore-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fashion I assoomes at
a tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes
throughout the entire summer in that neighbourhood; an' many a time an'
oft does my yoothful but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the
insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes
in the Bloo Grass is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit.

"'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky
_ton_ comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to
school one dewey mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a
onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the
misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by
no means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me
thoroughly convinced.

Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep