and jes as hungry as he could be; and he said his ma was sick, and his pa was dead, and he had nine little sisters and seven little bruthers, and he hadn’t had a mouthful to eat in two weeks, and no place to sleep, nor nuthin’.  So Nettie went to a doctors house, and told him she would give him the gold ring fur some fyssick fur the little boys muther; and the doctor give her some castor-oil and parrygorick, and then she went on tell they got to the house, and Nettie give her the fyssick, and some candy to take the taste out of her mouth, and it done her lots uv good; and she give all her nuts and candy to the poor little chillen.  And she went back to the man what sold her the things, and told him all about it; and he took back all the little stoves and tubs and iuns and things she had bort, and give her the money, and she carried it strait to the poor woman, and told her to buy some bread and cloes for her chillen.  The poor woman thanked her very much, and Nettie told em good-by, and started fur home.”

Here Diddie stopped suddenly and said,

“Come here a little minute, Dumps; I want you to help me wind up this tale.”  Then, after reading it aloud, she said, “You see, I’ve only got six mo’ lines of paper, an’ I haven’t got room to tell all that happened to her, an’ what become of her.  How would you wind up, if you were me?”

“I b’lieve I’d say, she furgive her sisters, an’ married the prince, an’ lived happy ever afterwards, like ‘Cinderilla an’ the Little Glass Slipper.’”

“Oh, Dumps, you’re such er little goose; that kind of endin’ wouldn’t suit my story at all,” said Diddie; “but I’ll have to wind up somehow, for all the little girls who read the book will want to know what become of her, an’ there’s only six lines to wind up in; an’ she’s only a little girl, an’ she can’t get married; besides, there ain’t any prince in Nu Orlins.  No, somethin’ will have to happen to her.  I tell you, I b’lieve I’ll make a runaway horse run over her goin’ home.”

“Oh, no, Diddie, please don’t,” entreated Dumps; “po’ little Nettie, don’t make the horse run over her.”

“I’m obliged to, Dumps; you mustn’t be so tender-hearted; she’s got ter be wound up somehow, an’ I might let the Injuns scalp her, or the bears eat her up, an’ I’m sure that’s a heap worse than jes er horse runnin’ over her; an’ then you know she ain’t no sho’ nuff little girl; she’s only made up out of my head.”

“I don’t care, I don’t want the horse to run over her.  I think it’s bad enough to make her give ‘way all her candy an’ little tubs an’ iuns an’ wheelbarrers, without lettin’ the horses run over her; an’ ef that’s the way you’re goin’ ter do, I sha’n’t have nuthin’ ’tall ter do with it.”

And Dumps, having thus washed her hands of the whole affair, went back to her dolls, and Diddie resumed her writing: 

“As she was agoin along, presently she herd sumthin cumin book-er-ty-book, book-er-ty-book, and there was a big horse and a buggy cum tearin down the road, and she ran jes hard as she could; but befo she could git out er the way, the horse ran rite over her, and killed her, and all the people took her up and carried her home, and put flowers all on her, and buried her at the church, and played the organ ’bout her; and that’s