'em, an' sent for you. But quick ez he see the clock, he come thoo. But
you was already gone for, then.

His gran'ma she got considerable fretted because he's broke off the long
han' o' the clock; but I don't see much out o' the way about that. Ef a
person thess remembers thet the long han' is the short han'--why, 't
ain't no trouble.

An' she does make 'im _so_ contented an' happy! Thess look at his face,
now! What is the face-vally of a clock, I like to know, compared to
that?


[Illustration: "Quick ez he see the clock, he come thoo."]


But of co'se the ol' lady she's gettin' on in years, and then she's
my wife's mother, which makes her my _di_rec' mother-in-law; an' so
I'm slow to conterdic' anything she says, an' I guess her idees o'
regulatin' childern--not to say clocks--is sort o' diff'rent to wife's
an' mine. She goes in for reg'lar dis_cip_line, same ez she got an'
survived in her day; an' of co'se, ez Sonny come to her ez gran'son the
same day he was born to us ez plain son, we never like to lift our
voices ag'in anything she says.

She loves him thess ez well ez we do, only on a diff'rent plan. She give
him the only spankin' he's ever had--an' the only silver cup.

Even wife an' me we had diff'rent idees on the subjec' o' Sonny's
raisin'; but somehow, in all our ca'culations, we never seemed to