Miss Minerva jerked him off with no gentle hand.

"What I done now?" asked the boy innocently, "'tain't no harm as I can see jes' to straddle a churn."

"Go out in the front yard," commanded his aunt, "and sit in the swing till I call you. I'll finish the work without your a.s.sistance. And, William," she called after him, "there is a very bad little boy who lives next door; I want you to have as little to do with him as possible."

CHAPTER IV

SWEETHEART AND PARTNER

Billy was sitting quietly in the big lawn-swing when his aunt, dressed for the street, finally came through the front door.

"I am going up-town, William," she said, "I want to buy you some things that you may go with me to church Sunday. Have you ever been to Sunday-School?"

"Naw 'm; but I been to pertracted meetin'," came the ready response, "I see Sanctified Sophy shout tell she tore ev'y rag offer her back 'ceptin' a shimmy. She's one 'oman what sho' is got 'ligion; she ain't never backslid 't all, an' she ain't never fell f'om grace but one time--"

"Stay right in the yard till I come back. Sit in the swing and don't go outside the front yard. I shan't be gone long," said Miss Minerva.

His aunt had hardly left the gate before Billy caught sight of a round, fat little face peering at him through the palings which separated Miss Minerva's yard from that of her next-door neighbor.

"h.e.l.lo!" shouted Billy. "Is you the bad little boy what can't play with me?"

"What you doing in Miss Minerva's yard?" came the answering interrogation across the fence.

"I's come to live with her," replied Billy. "My mama an' papa is dead.

What's yo' name?"

"I'm Jimmy Garner. How old are you? I'm most six, I am."

"Shucks, I's already six, a-going on seven. Come on, le's swing."

"Can't," said the new acquaintance, "I've runned off once to-day, and got licked for it."

"I ain't never got no whippin' sence me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln 's born," boasted Billy.

"Ain't you?" asked Jimmy. "I 'spec' I been whipped more 'n a million times, my mama is so pertic'lar with me. She's 'bout the pertic'larest woman ever was; she don't 'low me to leave the yard 'thout I get a whipping. I believe I will come over to see you 'bout half a minute."

Suiting the action to the word Jimmy climbed the fence, and the two little boys were soon comfortably settled facing each other in the big lawn-swing.

"Who lives over there?" asked Billy, pointing to the house across the street.

"That's Miss Cecilia's house. That's her coming out of the front gate now."

The young lady smiled and waved her hand at them.

"Ain't she a peach?" asked Jimmy. "She's my sweetheart and she is 'bout the swellest sweetheart they is."

"She's mine, too," promptly replied Billy, who had fallen in love at first sight. "I's a-goin' to have her fer my sweetheart too."

"Naw, she ain't yours, neither; she's mine," angrily declared the other little boy, kicking his rival's legs. "You all time talking 'bout you going to have Miss Cecilia for your sweetheart. She's done already promised me."

"I'll tell you what," proposed Billy, "lemme have her an' you can have Aunt Minerva."

"I wouldn't have Miss Minerva to save your life," replied Jimmy disrespectfully, "her nake ain't no bigger 'n that," making a circle of his thumb and forefinger. "Miss Cecilia, Miss Cecilia," he shrieked tantalizingly, "is my sweetheart."

"I'll betcher I have her fer a sweetheart soon as ever I see her," said Billy.

"What's your name?" asked Jimmy presently.

"Aunt Minerva says it's William Green Hill, but 'tain't, it's jest plain Billy," responded the little boy.

"Ain't G.o.d a nice, good old man," remarked Billy, after they had swung in silence for a while, with an evident desire to make talk.

"That He is," replied Jimmy, enthusiastically. "He's 'bout the forgivingest person ever was. I just couldn't get 'long at all 'thout Him. It don't make no differ'nce what you do or how many times you run off, all you got to do is just ask G.o.d to forgive you and tell him you're sorry and ain't going to do so no more, that night when you say your prayers, and it's all right with G.o.d. S'posing He was one of these wants-his-own-way kind o' mans, He could make Hi'self the troublesomest person ever was, and little boys couldn't do nothing a tall. I sure think a heap of G.o.d. He ain't never give me the worst of it yet."

"I wonder what He looks like," mused Billy.

"I s'pec' He just looks like the three-headed giant in Jack the Giant-Killer," explained Jimmy, "'cause He's got three heads and one body. His heads are name' Papa, Son, and Holy Ghost, and His body is just name' plain G.o.d. Miss Cecilia 'splained it all to me and she is 'bout the splendidest 'splainer they is. She's my Sunday-School teacher."

"She's goin' to be my Sunday-School teacher, too," said Billy serenely.

"Yours nothing; you all time want my Sunday-School teacher."

"Jimmee!" called a voice from the interior of the house in the next yard.

"Somebody's a-callin' you," said Billy.

"That ain't n.o.body but mama," explained Jimmy composedly.

"Jimmee-ee!" called the voice.

"Don't make no noise," warned that little boy, "maybe she'll give up toreckly."

"You Jimmee!" his mother called again.

Jimmy made no move to leave the swing.

"I don' never have to go 'less she says 'James Lafayette Garner,' then I got to hustle," he remarked.

"Jimmy Garner!"

"She's mighty near got me," he said softly; "but maybe she'll get tired and won't call no more. She ain't plumb mad yet.

"James Garner!"