The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II by Bob Blaisdell

to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
    â€œYo’ ole father doan’ know, yit, what he’s a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he’ll go ’way, en den agin he spec he’ll stay. De bes’ way is to res’ easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey’s two angels hoverin’ roun’ ’bout him. One uv ’em is white en shiny, en ’tother one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can’t tell, yit, which one gwyne to fetch him at de las’. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo’ life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin. Dey’s two gals flyin’ ’bout you in yo’ life. One uv ’em’s light en ’tother one is dark. One is rich en ’tother is po’. You’s gwyne to marry de po’ one fust en de rich one by-en-by. You wants to keep ’way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no resk, ’kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung.”
    When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night, there set pap—his own self!
    Chapter 5
    I had shut the door to. Then I turned around, and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken. That is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched—he being so unexpected; but right away after, I see I warn’t scared of him worth bothering about.
    He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes—just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on ’tother knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor; an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
    I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By-and-by he says:
    â€œStarchy clothes—very. You think you’re a good deal of a bigbug,
don’t
you?”
    â€œMaybe I am, maybe I ain’t,” I says.
    â€œDon’t you give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve put on considerable many frills since I been away. I’ll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You’re educated, too, they say; can read and write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because he can’t?
I
’ll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut’n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?”
    â€œThe widow. She told me.”
    â€œThe widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain’t none of her business?”
    â€œNobody never told her.”
    â€œWell, I’ll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that school, you hear? I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better’n what
he
is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn’t read, and she couldn’t write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn’t; before
they
died.
I
can’t; and here you’re