"Dar's a frien' in need," the bridegroom proclaimed happily. "Come here, dawg!"
"Git out o' here!" the woman shrieked, kicking at the hound and sending him out with a howl. "I don't want dat houn' in dis house scratchin' his fleas all over de rooms. Look at de mud dat dawg tracked in. Come wadin' through de bayou an' den come trackin' through de house!"
"Dar's some advantages in livin' a dawg's life, Pearline," Plaster sighed. "Even excusin' de fleas, dar's plenty advantage. A dawg, even a married dawg, he ain't tied up all de time an' kin run aroun' some."
"You aims to say you's gittin' tired stayin' here wid me?" Pearline snapped.
"No'm. Nothin' like dat. I's happy as a mosquiter on a pickaninny's nose."
"Ef you feels tied up like a houn'-dawg in de middle of de secont day, how does you expeck to feel in de middle of de secont year?"
Plaster thought it best not to venture a reply. He looked through the open door at the hound, lying under the china-berry tree in the glare, placidly scratching fleas, bumping the elbow of his hind leg on the soft ground as he scratched.
"Don't you never answer no 'terrogations when I axes you?" Pearline asked sharply. "How you gwine feel in de middle of de secont year?"
Out of sheer perversity Plaster was disposed to tell her that he would feel dead and buried for at least a year before the time she mentioned, but instead he swallowed hard three times. His throat was dry and his tongue rasped his mouth like sandpaper. His answer, finally, was a song:
"She'll be sweeter as de days go by;
She'll git sweeter as de moments fly;
She'll git sweeter an' be dearer
As to me she draws mo' nearer—
Sweeter as de days go by."