“And her legs?”
“So straight and strong,” she says. I took hold of her hand and squeezed it good, and then I went to the window and looked out, and I saw all the boys lined up along the fence waitin' for me to come out and let them know that what I'd told Brink Tuomy was so.
Proud? I was so proud I felt like givin' Mrs. Murphy a million dollars.
“Dang it!” I yelped. “Let her dad have another good look at Edith L.”
III. THE DAY OF THE SPANK
NOW, you just take a good look this here right fist of mine.
Looks like a ham, don't it? And see all them callouses on the palm. Ain't that a tool fit to break rock with? And what'd you say if I told you I used that once to hit that little, tender kid of mine? Actually hit her! What you say to that? I won't forgit that night soon, I tell you!
Just figger to yourself that it's sundown, and the blinds pulled down in the room where Deedee's cot was standin' like a little iron-barred cage. We got into the way of callin' the kid Deedee, that bein' what she called herself. There was all the signs that Deedee was goin' to sleep, and the plainest sign was Deedee herself, standin' up in her crib, wide awake, holdin' on to the foot of the crib, trampin' the sheets into a tangle of white underbrush, as you might say, and no more asleep than you are. The way Deedee went to sleep was like the death of an alligator—it was a long and strenuous affair.