“Edith,” I says in the hard voice she wasn't acquainted with; “Lie down
and go to sleep. I don't want to have no more of this. Go to sleep!” I
heard the dinner bell tinkle from the dinin'-room, and I helped Marthy
to git up, and we went out, and left Deedee alone in the dark.
I ate the first part of my dinner without sayin' anything. It wasn't
exactly easy to be lively under them circumstances. Even Uncle Ned
didn't say nothin', and grand-daddy didn't feel called on to start a
conversation. It got so we was so quiet it hurt. Uncle Ed made bold to
speak.
“When I was a kid,” he says, lightly, “I used to git spanked with a
six-inch plank.”
“Edward!” says Marthy. “How can you say such a thing?”
“It done me good,” he says. “You can't begin too young. We 've all got
the devil in us, and the only way to git it out is to pound it out.”
Marthy laid down her fork, and her lips trembled.
“Cut that out, Ed,” I says. “Marthy has the nerves to-night; the subject
ain't popular.”
“I think she's goin' to be good now,” says grand-daddy, who always stuck
up for the kid bein' the best that ever lived. “She seems quiet enough.
She must have gone off to sleep.”
“I sure do hope so,” says Marthy. “I never had such a day with her.”
“Mama, laim!” came the little voice from the bedroom, of a sudden.
“I met Tuomy to-day,” I says, “and he--”
“Mama, laim! Mama, laim!” called Deedee.
“He asked to be remembered to you,” I says. “He was with May Wilson--”