Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/81



OUNG man, why ain't you a-gittin' some schoolin'?"

The angular woman in the black bead bonnet shifted her basket of fish from her right arm to her left, and gazed at Lonely with unrelaxing severity. Lonely, in turn, hunched up a shoulder and continued to study the feats of the bareback riders in the new circus poster, whereon the paste had not yet had time to dry.

"Why ain't you gittin' some schoolin'?" repeated the woman with the glinting and dangling black beads.

"Don't need none, I guess!" said Lonely.

He worked his double-jointed fingers energetically: this often had the effect of driving women folks away.

"Don't need none! Would you listen to that grammar! Don't need any schoolin', and a-murderin' good language that way!"

"Schoolin' ain't everything!" maintained the boy, stoutly. Yet he had his sneaking