“Mama, laim! Papa, laim!”
It kept gittin' louder. It got to be a regular cry, punctuated off here
and there with calls for “laim.”
Marthy looked at me, hopeless. I seen the look and looked down at my
plate.
“I'll spank her when I'm done my dinner,” I says. “There's no other
way.”
We didn't say much durin' the rest of that meal. It was a very solemn
feast. We was all thinkin' of Deedee. There wasn't no doubt that the
time had come we had been afraid of. The punishment and the crime was
properly fitted to each other.
Now, or never, was the time to spank; but we was a ridiculous
tender-hearted family, and, as the dinner went on, the spankin'
of Deedee loomed up bigger than Pike's Peak. It piled up huge and
record-breakin' above the tea-pots and the puddin's, and looked about as
important as the end of the world, or a big war.
When we got up it was like the condemned goin' to the execution, and we
marched into the front room like a jury, bringin' in the death verdict,
files into the court room.
Deedee still cried for “laim.”
We four sat down, and looked at the carpet, as gloomy as a funeral.
I opened my mouth, swallowed hard two times, and shut it again. Uncle
Edward tapped on the carpet with his toe, grand-daddy looked at one of
the spots on the same carpet like it was a personal insult to him, and
Marthy smoothed out one of the roses on it with her heel. We wasn't half
so interested in that carpet when we bought it as we looked to be that
very minute.
“Well?” says Marthy, at last. I kept my eye away from hers. I looked out
of the window. Next I got up and stood by the window and stuck my hands
deep down into my pants pockets.
“If you 're goin' to--” says Marthy. “If you ain't--”
Deedee was gittin' too bad to stand. It looked as if the neighbors would
be comin' in to complain, next thing.
I turned around and walked slow toward the bedroom. The three other
grown-ups sat like stone statures. As I pushed aside the curtains,
Marthy jumped across the room and grabbed me by the arm.
“Hiram!” she cried eager, “You won't be too severe? You won't git mad
and hurt her?”
“Marthy,” I says, “if you want to spank her, do so. If you want me to
spank her, don't you mix in.” I shook her hand off of me, and she went
back to her chair cryin'.
Well, I went into that bedroom. Deedee left off cryin' when she seen me,
and in the dim light I could see her standin' in the crib. I stuck out
my hand to take her, and she hung on to it.
“Papa, laim!” she begged.
“Edith,” I says, hoarse in my throat, “you 've been naughty. Papa told
you to go to sleep, and mama told you to go to sleep. When we tell you
to go to sleep, you've got to go to sleep. Now, this is the last time
I'm goin' to tell you. Will you lie down and go to sleep?”
“Papa, laim!” she says, impatient.
I set my mouth and lifted her up and laid her on the bed on her face and
held her there. She struggled and yelled.
“Be quiet!” I says, “be quiet, or I will spank you!”
She gave one long, lingerin' cry for “laim.”
I took a long breath, and lifted up my hand, and--and--I ain't a-goin'
to tell about that. Let's go into the other room.
There set the three other grownups, holdin' their hands over their ears,
with pained lookin' faces. Even at that they heard the sound of a dozen
short, sharp claps, and the sound of the quick cries, and then there was
a silent spell, only broke by the great big sobs of the little kid in
the next room,--sobs that sort of exploded their way out, shakin' the
little body till the crib rattled.
[Illustration: The sobbin' got weaker and weaker 120]
The sobbin' got weaker and weaker, and come further apart, and I stole
out of the bedroom, wipin' my face with my handkerchief.
“I think she'll be a good girly now,” says grand-daddy, gentle-like.
That baby, shocked and surprised, laid on the pillow thinkin', as much
as a baby could think. Something cruel and unexpected had happened to
her.
Me and Marthy had turned cruel. She didn't have no one to love up to.
She had been hurt. Her papa dear had hurt her, because she had cried for
“laim.”
“I hope she will,” says Marthy in reply to grand-daddy, and that minute
from the bedroom, come Deedee's voice.
“Papa!” it pleaded.