One Monday, Aunty May asked Aunty Edith if I couldn't go down,--it was
raining,--if I put on my raincoat and boots, with Mr. Taylor, when he
went to the mail, and bring her some stamps and stamped envelopes. Aunty
Edith said, "Oh, all right, May, but it seems to me you eat stamps.
They disappear so fast." Aunty May laughed, and said,

"Be-that-as-it-may," which is what she always says when she wants to
stop discussing, "William goes."

So I got ready, and Mr. Taylor and me started down. It's a mile away.

Mr. Taylor doesn't like umbrellas, neither do I, so, as it was only
misting, Aunty May said I needn't.

Just as we got to Rabbit Run Bridge, who came along, with his mules, and
the same canal boat, and the same man asleep, under an umbrella this
time, but that BOY!

Mr. Taylor says, that the et-i-ket of such things makes him leave me
and go sit on the bridge while I had it out. So I went down and said to
the boy, "Hey, you, where's my cap?" And he grinned and said, "I give it
to your eel. He's a-wearing of it now, and it looks fine on him."

That strikes me so funny that I began to laugh; then I remembered that
wasn't what I wanted to do. So I says, "Come on down till I polish you
up for what you did to my cap"; and he says, "I'll be down in a minute
to fix you for what you done to my mule. I've gotter put him in trousers
to-morrow, his legs is so damaged."

Then I began to laugh again, at the thought of a mule in trousers. "Aw,