the difference between school-teaching over yonder and
school-teaching over here--sho! WE don't know anything
about it! Here you're got to peg and peg and peg and there
just ain't any let-up--and what you learn here, you've got
to KNOW, dontchuknow --or else you'll have one of these
------spavined, spectacles, ring-boned, knock-kneed old
professors in your hair. I've been here long ENOUGH,
and I'm getting blessed tired of it, mind I TELL you.
The old man wrote me that he was coming over in June,
and said he'd take me home in August, whether I was done
with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come;
never said why; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school
books, and told me to be good, and hold on a while.
I don't take to Sunday-school books, dontchuknow--I
don't hanker after them when I can get pie--but I
READ them, anyway, because whatever the old man tells
me to do, that's the thing that I'm a-going to DO,
or tear something, you know. I buckled in and read
all those books, because he wanted me to; but that kind
of thing don't excite ME, I like something HEARTY.
But I'm awful homesick. I'm homesick from ear-socket
to crupper, and from crupper to hock-joint; but it ain't
any use, I've got to stay here, till the old man drops
the rag and give the word--yes, SIR, right here in this
------country I've got to linger till the old man says
COME!--and you bet your bottom dollar, Johnny, it AIN'T
just as easy as it is for a cat to have twins!"

At the end of this profane and cordial explosion he
fetched a prodigious "WHOOSH!" to relieve his lungs