The Grinder Papers — page 234: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GRINDER PAPERS. 229 was discovered how’t the red-haired one was goin’ to hev a hor- rid big mouth, and Miss Slum, junior, wou/d change back again And so it kept on. Finally one turned out so pretty that both insisted he was theirn. That, of course, warn't your Simeon. Then they sot ‘em on the floor tu see which they'd creep tu, and decide by that; and then there was a heap o’ changin’, for they went dif- ferent every time; and at last whenever one cried very hard, that ones pa would change him, if ‘twas the middle o’ the night, feelin’ sure how't the yellin’ one warn’t his’n by the natur’ o’ his feelin’ toward it. Poor Miss Slum, junior, said she couldn’t get no rest at nights, it got to be so bad at last. Well, so it went on when they went to school. If one was ahead o his class, both mas claimed him. Ef one had the hoopincough, both mas was sartin sure he warn't their'n, and finally they quarreled so that the husbands declared they'd stop It. So they did, somehow. Some say they turned up a cent, and others agin that they grabbed ‘em up in the dark. But any way, at last they took ’em to be christened, and kept ’em after that as they was. i However, I don’t believe they really knew, and it’s as true as I set here, howt I couldn't tell if I was to die for it whether Simeon Slum is his own uncle or his own nephew. ‘Twarn't right 0’ him not to tell you, But don’t look so aw- Comicbooks