"Who is this Uncle Daniel you say you live with? Is he a farmer?"

"No; he's a deacon, an' he raps me over the head with the hymn book
whenever I go to sleep in meetin', an' he says I eat four times as
much as I earn. I blame him for hittin' so hard when I go to sleep,
but I s'pose he's right about my eatin'. You see," and here his
tone grew both confidential and mournful, "I am an awful eater, an'
I can't seem to help it. Somehow I'm hungry all the time. I don't
seem ever to get enough till carrot time comes, an' then I can get
all I want without troublin' anybody."

"Didn't you ever have enough to eat?"

"I s'pose I did; but you see Uncle Dan'l he found me one mornin'
on his hay, an' he says I was cryin' for something to eat then, an'
I've kept it up ever since. I tried to get him to give me money
enough to go into the circus with; but he said a cent was all
he could spare these hard times, an' I'd better take that an' buy
something to eat with it, for the show wasn't very good, anyway.
I wish peanuts wasn't but a cent a bushel."

"Then you would make yourself sick eating them."

"Yes, I s'pose I should; Uncle Dan'l says I'd eat till I was sick,
if I got the chance; but I'd like to try it once."

He was a very small boy, with a round head covered with short red
hair, a face as speckled as any turkey's egg, but thoroughly good
natured looking; and as he sat there on the rather sharp point of