The style I am attempting to steal, is that of Mark Twain, who had a remarkable knack for cramming tons of information into a simple sentence structure.

Mark Twain would have written great ficlys

It tells a lot about the skill with which you emulate here that I had an idea it was Mark Twain you were going for, before I’d finished reading…

A nice introduction to the character of Amos and his family – you did well packing everything in.

I presume then, that the egg referred to in the last line, was in the sealed bucket for show and tell? That wasn’t quite clear, but I drew the conclusion anyhoo so maybe I’m just fussing over nothing!

Good work – MH :)

That was funny, and I can totally picture this wide-eyed little kid innocently launching into his show-and-tell explanation.

The southern twang came across loud and clearly Twain! Good work, and you succeeded in packing in quite a bit of info.