And I will say Daddy Withers
was a fine old boy in spite of his poetry. Which
it never really done any harm, except being expensive
to him, and lots will drink that much up and never
figger it an expense, but one of the necessities of
life. We went all over his place with him, and we
noticed around his house a lot of tin cans tacked
up to posts and trees. They was fur the birds to
drink out of, and all the birds around there had
found out about it, and about Daddy Withers, and
wasn't scared of him at all. He could get acquainted
with animals, too, so that after a long spell sometimes
they would even let him handle them. But not if
any one was around. They was a crow he had made
a pet of, used to hop around in front of him, and try
fur to talk to him. If he went to sleep in the front
yard whilst he was reading, that crow had a favour-
ite trick of stealing his spectacles off'n his nose and
flying up to the ridgepole of the house, and cawing
at him. Once he had been setting out a row of
tomato plants very careful, and he got to the end
of the row and turned around, and that there crow
had been hopping along behind very sollum, pulling
up each plant as he set it out. It acted like it had
done something mighty smart, and knowed it,
that crow. So after that the old man named him
Satan, fur he said it was Satan's trick to keep things
from growing.
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