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 t'other 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: “Starchy clothes--very.  You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, _don't_ you?” “Maybe I am, maybe I ain't,” I says. “Don'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?” “The widow.  She told me.” “The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business?” “Nobody never told her.” “Well, 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 a-swelling you