Thess so, she said it. "Sen' for who, wife?" says I, "an' have what
did?" "Why, sen' for him, the 'Piscopal preacher," says she, "an' have
Sonny christened. Them little toes o' hisn is ez red ez cherry tomatoes.
They burnt my lips thess now like a coal o' fire an'--an' lockjaw is
goin' roun' tur'ble.

"Seems to me," says she, "when he started to git sleepy, he didn't gap
ez wide ez he gen'ly does--an' I'm 'feered he's a-gittin' it now." An',
sir, with that, she thess gathered up her apron an' mopped her face in
it an' give way. An' ez for me, I didn't seem to have no mo' backbone
down my spinal colume 'n a feather bolster has, I was that weak.

I never ast her why she didn't sen' for our own preacher. I knowed then
ez well ez ef she'd 'a' told me why she done it--all on account o' Sonny
bein' so tickled over the 'Piscopals' meetin's.

It was mos' nine o'clock then, an' a dark night, an' rainin', but I
never said a word--they wasn't no room round the edges o' the lump in my
throat for words to come out ef they'd 'a' been one surgin' up there to
say, which they wasn't--but I thess went out an' saddled my horse an' I
rid into town. Stopped first at the doctor's an' sent him out, though I
knowed 't wouldn't do no good; Sonny wouldn't 'low him to tech it; but
I sent him out anyway, to look at it, an', ef possible, console wife a
little. Then I rid on to the rector's an' ast him to come out immejate
an' baptize Sonny. But nex' day was his turn to preach down at Sandy
Crik, an' he couldn't come that night, but he promised to come right
after services nex' mornin'--which he done--rid the whole fo'teen mile
from Sandy Crik here in the rain, too, which I think is a evidence o'
Christianity, though no sech acts is put down in my book o' "evidences"
where they ought rightfully to be.