“Say you ain't never a-goin' to tell nobody, cross yo' heart,” was the next command.
“I say I ain't never going to tell nobody, cross my heart. Get up, Billy, 'fore you make me mad, and ain't no telling what I'll do to you if I get mad.”
“I ain't going to say I'm nothing of the kind,” spiritedly replied the under-dog. “You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself.”
“You got to say it,” insisted the victor, renewing hostilities.
“I'll say I'm a Isabella 'cause Isabella discovered America and's in the Bible,” replied the tormented one; “Miss Cecilia 'splained it to me.”
Billy accepted his compromise and Jimmy's flattened stomach, relieved of its burden, puffed out to its usual roundness as that little boy rose to his feet, saying:
“Sam Lamb would 'a' died a-laughing, Billy, if he 'd seen you telephoning.”
“He 'd better never hear tell of it,” was the threatening rejoinder.
Billy, sitting in an old buggy in front of the livery stable, had just engaged in a long and interesting conversation with Sam Lamb.
He was getting out of the vehicle when the sharp wire around a broken rod caught in the back of his trousers and tore a great hole. He felt a tingling pain and looked over his shoulder to investigate. Not being satisfied with the result, he turned his back to the negro and anxiously enquired, “Is my breeches tore, Sam?”
“Dey am dat,” was the reply, “dey am busted Fm Dan ter Beersheba.”
“What I goin' to do 'bout it?” asked the little boy, “Aunt Minerva sho' will be mad. These here's branspankin' new trousers what I ain't never wore tell today. Ain't you got a needle an' thread so's you can fix 'em. Sam?”
“Is my union suit tore, too?” and Billy again turned his back for inspection.
“Yo' unions is injured plum scanerous,” was his discouraging decision, “and hit 'pears ter me dat yo' hide done suffer too; you's got er turrible scratch.”
The child sighed. The injury to the flesh was of small importance,--he could hide that from his aunt--but the rent in his trousers was a serious matter.
“I wish I could git 'em mended 'fore I goes home,” he said wistfully.
“I tell you what do,” suggested Sam, “I 'low Miss Cecilia'll holp yeh; jest go by her house an' she'll darn 'em up fer yuh.”