his leg and resting the notebook against his lean knee. "Wish I could
stand off and listen to meself," he muttered. "Kind o' get the defect
better." Then he read laboriously:--


"Bo, it's goin' to be hot all right;
Sun's a floodin' the eastern range.
Mebby it was kind o' cold last night,
But there's nothin' like havin' a little change.
Money? No. Only jest room for me;
Mountings and valleys and plains and such.
Ain't I got eyes that was made to see?
Ain't I got ears? But they don't hear much:
Only a kind of a inside song,
Like when the grasshopper quits his sad,
And says: 'Rickety-chick! Why, there is nothin' wrong!'
And after the coffee, things ain't so bad."


"Huh! Sounds all right for a starter. Ladies and them as came with
you, I will now spiel the next section."


"The wind is makin' my bed for me,
Smoothin' the grass where I'm goin' to flop,
When the quails roost up in the live-oak tree,
And my legs feel like as they want to stop.
Pal or no pal, it's about the same,
For nobody knows how you feel inside.
Hittin' the grit is a lonesome game,--