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 yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it -­ you hear? Say, lemme hear you read." I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with.