He wuz gloomy and morbid, and looked on life, and us, with kinder mad
and distrustful eyes. Above all others, he wuz mean to his twin sister;
he looked down on her and browbeat her the worst kind, and felt older
than she did, and acted as if she wuz a mere child compared to him,
though he wuzn't more'n five minutes older than she wuz, if he wuz that.

Their names wuz Algernon and Guenivere Piddock, but they called 'em Nony
and Neny--which wuz, indeed, a comfort to bystanders. Folks ort to be
careful what names they put onto their children; yes, indeed.

Neny wuz a very beautiful, good-appearin' young girl, and acted as if
she would have had good sense, and considerable of it, if she hadn't
been afraid to say her soul wuz her own.

But Nony wuz cold and haughty. He sot right by me on the north side,
Josiah Allen sot on my south. And I fairly felt chilly on that side
sometimes, almost goose pimples, that young man child felt so cold and
bitter towards the world and us, and so sort o' patronizin'.

[Illustration: He sot by me.]

He didn't believe in religion, nor nothin'. He didn't believe in
Christopher Columbus--right there to the doin's held for him, he didn't
believe in him.

"Why," sez I, "he discovered the land we live in."

He said, "He was very doubtful whether that wuz so or not--histories
made so many mistakes, he presoomed there never was such a man at all."