"You? Why,—why what ails you?"
"You reckon p'r'aps I mount git changed some way outen this here quare back I got, so't I can hol' my hade like otheh folks? Jes' go to sleep like, an' wake up straight like Frale?"
The old doctor turned and looked down a moment on the child sitting hunched at his side. His mouth worked as he meditated a reply.
"What would you do if you could c—arry your head straight like Frale? If you had been like him, you would be running a 'still' pretty soon. You never would have come to me to set you straight, and so you would n—never have seen all the pictures and the great cities. You are going to be a man before you know it, and—"
"And I'll do a heap o' things when I'm a man, too—but I wisht—I wisht— These here snails we b'en hunt'n', you reckon they're done growed to ther shells so they can't get out? What did God make 'em that-a-way fer?"
"It's all in the order of things. Everything has its place in the world and its work to do. They don't want to get out. They like to carry their bones on the outside of their bodies. They're made so. Yes, yes, all in the order of things. They like it."
"You reckon you can tell me hu' come God 'lowed me to have this-er lump on my back? Hit hain't in no ordeh o' things fer humans to be like I be."