Miss Minerva and William Green Hill | Page 6

into the
dining-room.
Returning a few minutes later she found him sitting astride the churn,
using the dasher so vigorously that buttermilk was splashing in every
direction, and singing in a clear, sweet voice:
"He'll feed you when you's naked, The orphan stear he'll dry, He'll
clothe you when you's hongry An' take you when you die."
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 assistance. 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.
"Hello!" 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 God 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 God 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 God. S'posing He was one of these

wants-his-own-way kind o'