“I’m nine years old!  An’ you can’t guess how much I weigh, I bet!—­
  Last birthday I weighed thirty-three!—­An’ I weigh thirty yet! 
  I’m awful little far my size—­I’m purt’ nigh littler ’an
  Some babies is!—­an’ neighbors all calls me ‘The Little Man!’
  An’ Doc one time he laughed an’ said:  ’I ’spect, first thing you
    know,
  You’ll have a little spike-tail coat an’ travel with a show!’
  An’ nen I laughed—­till I looked round an’ Aunty was a-cryin’—­
  Sometimes she acts like that, ’cause I got ’Curv’ture of the
  Spine!’”

Just in front of me a great broad-shouldered countryman, with a rainy smell in his cumbrous overcoat, cleared his throat vehemently, looked startled at the sound, and again settled forward, his weedy chin resting on the knuckles of his hands as they tightly clutched the seat before him.  And it was like being taken into a childish confidence as the quaint speech continued: 

  “I set—­while Aunty’s washin’—­on my little long-leg stool,
  An’ watch the little boys an’ girls ‘a-skippin’ by to school;
  An’ I peck on the winder, an’ holler out an’ say: 
  ’Who wants to fight The Little Man ‘at dares you all to-day?’
  An’ nen the boys climbs on the fence, an’ little girls peeks
    through,
  An’ they all says:  ’Cause you’re so big, you think we’re ‘feared o’
    you!’
  An’ nen they yell, an’ shake their fist at me, like I shake mine—­
  They’re thist in fun, you know, ’cause I got ’Curv’ture of the
    Spine!’”

“Well,” whispered my friend, with rather odd irrelevance, I thought, “of course you see through the scheme of the fellows by this time, don’t you?”

“I see nothing,” said I, most earnestly, “but a poor little wisp of a child that makes me love him so I dare not think of his dying soon, as he surely must!  There; listen!” And the plaintive gaiety of the homely poem ran on: 

  “At evening, when the ironin’s done, an’ Aunty’s fixed the fire,
  An’ filled an’ lit the lamp, an’ trimmed the wick an’ turned it
    higher,
  An’ fetched the wood all in far night, an’ locked the kitchen door,
  An’ stuffed the ole crack where the wind blows in up through the
    floor—­
  She sets the kittle on the coals, an’ biles an’ makes the tea,
  An’ fries the liver an’ the mush, an’ cooks a egg far me;
  An’ sometimes—­when I cough so hard—­her elderberry wine
  Don’t go so bad far little boys with ‘Curv’ture of the Spine!’”

“Look!” whispered my friend, touching me with his elbow.  “Look at the Professor!”

“Look at everybody!” said I. And the artless little voice went on again half quaveringly: 

  “But Aunty’s all so childish-like on my account, you see,
  I’m ‘most afeared she’ll be took down—­an’ ’at’s what bothers
    me!—­
  ‘Cause ef my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an’ die,
  I don’t know what she’d do