NOW, you just take a good look this here right fist of mine.
Looks like a ham, don't it? And see all them callouses on the palm.
Ain't that a tool fit to break rock with? And what'd you say if I told
you I used that once to hit that little, tender kid of mine? Actually
hit her! What you say to that? I won't forgit that night soon, I tell
you!
Just figger to yourself that it's sundown, and the blinds pulled down in
the room where Deedee's cot was standin' like a little iron-barred
cage. We got into the way of callin' the kid Deedee, that bein' what she
called herself. There was all the signs that Deedee was goin' to sleep,
and the plainest sign was Deedee herself, standin' up in her crib, wide
awake, holdin' on to the foot of the crib, trampin' the sheets into a
tangle of white underbrush, as you might say, and no more asleep
than you are. The way Deedee went to sleep was like the death of an
alligator--it was a long and strenuous affair.
Marthy stood lookin' at Deedee with reproaches in her eyes. We had a
sort of tradition in the family that Deedee had to go to sleep quick
and quiet, without any nonsense. Every night, when Marthy put the little
white rascal in the crib, she had hopes that the tradition would come
true, and every night it didn't. The go-to-sleep hour was the time
Deedee seemed to pick out to have an hour of especial lively fun, and
for weeks she had been breakin' the laws, and walkin' all over the rules
with her pink feet. She did not see, comin' up over the horizon, and
gittin' nearer every day, the stern and horrid Spank!
We had got together in a sort of family conclave and decided that Deedee
was about old enough to be punished by layin' on of hands. We decided
it one time when Deedee was out of the room, and we had been right stern
about it. We could be stern about Deedee when she wasn't in sight. When
she come smilin' and singin' along we generally had to quit bein' stern,
and kiss her.
Deedee was twenty-two months old, and she was ninety-eight per cent,
pure sweetness. Some of the women in our end of town said her short,
curly hair was tow-colored, but it wasn't so--they was just envious of
us. And one and all said her eyes was like round little bits of blue
sky. It was clear enough that she had inherited her sweetness from
Marthy; and some said it was equal clear that the two per cent, of
unadulterated stubbornness come from me. I said so myself, but I didn't
believe it.
Deedee was gittin' to be a regular person. She could tell what she
wanted, and once in a while we could understand what it was. It was full
time, everybody said, that her education had ought to begin. If she was
goin' to grow up into a fine, sincere woman like Marthy, she must have
the right kind of start. Just the night before the day of the Spank,
Marthy had begun to teach her her religious education. Standin' up
at Marthy's knee--for Deedee would not kneel to God or man--she had
repeated:--
“Nowee-laimee-downee-seep,
Padee-O-so-tee.”