Read "Bill, the Lokil Editor" by Eugene Field online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Bill wuz alluz fond uv children 'nd birds 'nd flowers. Ain't it kind o' / curious how sometimes we find a great, big, awkward man who loves sech / things? Bill had the biggest feet in the township, but I'll bet my wallet / that he never trod on a violet in all his life. Bill never took no slack / from enny man that wuz sober, but the children made him play with 'em, and / he'd set for hours a-watchin' the yaller-hammer buildin' her nest in the / old cottonwood.
Now I ain't defendin' Bill; I'm jest tellin' the truth about him. Nothink / I kin say one way or t'other is goin' to make enny difference now; Bill's / dead 'nd buried, 'nd the folks is discussin' him 'nd wond'rin' whether his / immortal soul is all right. Sometimes I _hev_ worried 'bout Bill, but / I don't worry 'bout him no more. Uv course Bill had his faults, -- I never / liked that drinkin' business uv his'n, yet I allow that Bill got more good / out'n likker, and likker got more good out'n Bill, than I ever see before / or sence. It warn't when the likker wuz in Bill that Bill wuz at his best, / but when he hed been on to one uv his bats 'nd had drunk himself sick 'nd / wuz comin' out uv the other end of the bat, then Bill wuz one uv the / meekest 'nd properest critters you ever seen. An' po'try? Some uv the most / beautiful po'try I ever read wuz writ by Bill when he wuz recoverin' / himself out'n one uv them bats. Seemed like it kind uv exalted an' / purified Bill's nachur to git drunk an' git over it. Bill c'u'd drink more / likker 'nd be sorrier for it than any other man in seven States. There / never wuz a more penitent feller than he wuz when he wuz soberin'. The / trubble with Bill seemed to be that his conscience didn't come on watch / quite of'n enuff.