“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
It was a fine success for a first start, only she didn't do what she
said she was goin' to do and “lay me down to sleep.” Instead of that she
stood up in her crib for about an hour, callin' for “Mamie,” the meanin'
of which was that she wanted to be rocked and have Marthy sing “Mary had
a little lamb,” to her.
The day of the Spank had a bad openin'. When Deedee woke up, along
about five o'clock a.m., it was rainin' pitchforks, and that meant a
day indoors, and to start off, she stood up in her crib and called for
“laim.”
Marthy woke up sort of realizin' that Deedee was repeatin' that word
slow, but regular, and she sat up and thought. “Laim” was a new word,
and the meanin' of it was unknown, but, whatever it was, Deedee wanted
it. She wanted it bad. Nothin' but “laim” would satisfy her.
Marthy studied that word good and hard. It did not seem to suggest
anything to eat or drink, and, as near as Marthy could make out, it
didn't rightly apply to any toy, game, song, person, or anything else.
Marthy woke me up, and I sat up with a sigh. Deedee looked at me as if
she thought she would git what she wanted now, sure.
“Laim, Deedee?” I asked, and she smiled as sweet as you please.
“Papa, laim!” she says again. “Laim!” I says, thoughtful, lookin' around
the room and up at the ceilin'. I screwed up my forehead and studied,
and twisted my neck to look into the next room. “Laim! What's a 'laim,'
anyhow?”
“I give it up,” I says, after I'd thought of everything in the world,
pretty near. “Mebby her grandpa would know. Mebby it's something he
taught her.”
We lifted Deedee out of her crib, and set her down on the floor, and
she pattered down the hall. We could hear her tellin' him to give her
“laim,” and the puzzled way he answered her back.
“Laim, birdy? What is it? Say it again, Deedee. Laim? Grand-daddy don't
know what you want, Deedee.”
Neither did Uncle Ed, who was stayin' with us about then. Nobody knew
what “laim” was but Deedee, and she wanted it the worst way. She come
back, and stood by Marthy's bed, and just begged for it.
It was a hard day for Marthy. It was Monday, and wash-day, so Deedee
couldn't bother Katie in the kitchen, and it was rainin' too. Deedee
just wandered through the house, like she had lost her last friend, and
then she would come back to Marthy and ask for “laim.” She wouldn't have
nothing to do with her toys, and she wouldn't sew with a pin, and
she wouldn't sit at the table and write, and she wouldn't look at the
photygraft book. And the worst of it was that she wouldn't keep still a
minute.
[Illustration: She wouldn't keep still a minute 100]
By noon-time Marthy had a headache. By sundown she had “nerves,” and
about then she began to look at Deedee with a sort of reproachful look.
Deedee had said that unknown word about ten thousand times. Marthy put
Deedee to bed in her crib, and I read once how Wellington, at Waterloo,
in the big fight they had there, prayed for night or Blücher, and that
was about how Marthy longed for the sandman or me to come. I was the
one that come, at last. I come in the house wet to the skin, and plumb
disgusted; my pants stickin' to my legs and all over mud, and I chucked
my soakin' hat and my umbrelly into a corner, the way a tired-out man
will, and just dropped into a chair, tuckered out. I let out one good,
long sigh of thanks that I was at the end of a hard day.
“Hiram!” comes Marthy's voice; “Come in here, and see if you can do
anything with Edith. I have worked with her all day, and I'm played out;
I'm utter tired.”
“Oh, plague!” I says. I sat a minute, drummin' on the arm of my chair,
and then I got upon my feet, and walked into the bedroom.
“What's the matter?” I says, as near cross as I calculate I ever git,
and Marthy's eyes filled up.
“I _can't_ do anything with her,” she says. “She _won't_ go to sleep.
She has been dreadful all day. I don't feel like I could stand it
another minute.” Marthy threw herself on the bed and covered up her face
with her hands. She was cryin'.