Page:Pipetown Sandy (Sousa 1905).djvu/35

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IT'S ALL IN THE FINGERS
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the prospective pleasure of having Sandy next to him.

The older boy came, and opening his geography at the page containing a map of the Northern States, he whispered: "There they are, all bunched together, an' they look harder'n a puzzle."

Smilingly Gilbert commenced. "My father says absent-minded people forget things, because they do not consider them of sufficient importance. Perhaps that's what you think about the Northern States?"

"No, I ain't absent-minded," said Sandy slowly. "We had a man down our way, whose folks called him absent-minded. But one day, when the snow wuz a foot thick, he came out in the street with no more shoes on than a crow, an' the bug-doctor grabbed him an' clapped him into the 'sylum. The bug-doctor said he wuz luny. That ain't my trouble. I've got all my buttons. I simply ain't got no noddle fer l'arnin'."

From the moment these two boys had come together, until the last one of their school-days, Gilbert impressed upon Sandy that he was not the only one deficient in the things he was trying to learn. Then, too, he saw, even though vaguely,

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