Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/254

 His shirt, and his one-sided suspenders, and even the trousers that he wore, had also belonged to his pappy. As Jerusalem Artie was only eight years old, the trousers were a trifle long. He had once suggested cutting them off, but his mammy had objected.

"Co'se yo' cain't, chile! Yo' pappy might hab to weah dem pants some mo' hisself yit, an' how-all'd he look den?"

The question was unanswerable.

"An' what-all 'd I weah den?" he had queried, dismayed at the possibility.

"How-all yo' s'pose I's a-gwine know dat?" his mammy had responded. "Maybe yo' skin."

So Jerusalem Artie had rolled, and rolled, and rolled the bottom of the trouser legs till his little black toes emerged from the openings.

But now, as he sat on the door-step, his mind was not upon his clothes, not even upon the offending trousers. It was upon the Christmas dinner for which he was longing, but which did not exist.

"All neighbo' folks a-gwine hab Chris'mus dinnahs," he was saying to himself. "Boys done tol' me so. An' we's gwine hab Chris'