“If I tell you who Hitch’s mother is, will you promise never to reveal it?”
“I promises!” Skeeter exclaimed.
“His mother is Ginny Babe Chew!” the sheriff told him.
Skeeter reeled back from the shock, and an exclamation shot from his throat like a bullet.
He turned round and round like a man who was dazed, uttering a series of highly profane expletives like the crackling of thorns under a pot.
“You asked me why I didn’t tell Hitch who his mother was,” the sheriff continued, as he started away. “I think you know the answer!”
Ginny Babe Chew!
Like a panorama the events of the Sunday before passed before his dazed and horrified vision—Ginny Babe Chew, shrieking, cursing, whooping, thrusting the people aside and pressing up behind the sheriff’s horse, howling after her son the charge of “Murder! Murder! Murder!” Again he saw her struck down by the massive fist of Vinegar Atts, the blood streaming from her lips, the mob splitting into halves as they walked past her, while she groaned and cursed, groveling in the dust. Again he saw her staggering down the street, the blood reddening the front of her dress and making a red froth upon her lips, as she stood in front of the jail tossing dust into the air, gyrating, shrieking, cursing, and wailing, “Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch!”
What a mother for any man to have!
Skeeter staggered across the courthouse yard, wiping the clammy sweat from his temples.