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 cool and indifferent he acted. I guess Tamer noticed it, for she spoke up and said:

"Cicero wuz such a reader, he had such a great taste for books and literatoor, he wuz so much like his Ma." And then she patted him on his head, but he didn't seem to mind that any, he wuz fairly bound up in his book, it wuz "The Brave Bold Young Bandit; or, The Farmer Fool Outwitted." It had a yeller cover and painted on it wuz a innocent lookin' young farmer boy, kneelin' at the feet of a bandit boy with bold flashin' eyes, embroidered uniform and tall feathers in his hat. I looked at it when he laid it down for a minute that day, and I see that it would be real instructive in learnin' a boy to despise honest labor and heart merit, and honor dashing wickedness and crime. He had a cigarette in his hand when he met me, and he had one in his hand or his mouth every time I see him almost while we wuz there.

Well, to resoom backwards a little. Josiah come in in about haif an hour. The mair had started back straight for home. That mair has a constant heart under her white hide, and she'd left children there and grandchildren, I didn't blame the mair, though I pitied my poor Josiah, he wuz beat out. He said that if it hadn't been for Tom Willis he never should have ketched her at all. But that didn't surprise me any, for Tom Willis is one of the kind who always will find a way to do anything he sets out to. So he had helped Josiah ketch the mair.

They wuz dretful glad to have us there, it had been more than a year since we had been there to stay any, and now we laid out to stay two days and nights, and they wuz tickled. But as glad as they'd been to see us,