Marthy studied that word good and hard. It did not seem to suggest anything to eat or drink, and, as near as Marthy could make out, it didn't rightly apply to any toy, game, song, person, or anything else. Marthy woke me up, and I sat up with a sigh. Deedee looked at me as if she thought she would git what she wanted now, sure.
“Laim, Deedee?” I asked, and she smiled as sweet as you please.
“Papa, laim!” she says again. “Laim!” I says, thoughtful, lookin' around the room and up at the ceilin'. I screwed up my forehead and studied, and twisted my neck to look into the next room. “Laim! What's a 'laim,' anyhow?”
“I give it up,” I says, after I'd thought of everything in the world, pretty near. “Mebby her grandpa would know. Mebby it's something he taught her.”
We lifted Deedee out of her crib, and set her down on the floor, and she pattered down the hall. We could hear her tellin' him to give her “laim,” and the puzzled way he answered her back.
“Laim, birdy? What is it? Say it again, Deedee. Laim? Grand-daddy don't know what you want, Deedee.”
Neither did Uncle Ed, who was stayin' with us about then. Nobody knew what “laim” was but Deedee, and she wanted it the worst way. She come back, and stood by Marthy's bed, and just begged for it.
It was a hard day for Marthy. It was Monday, and wash-day, so Deedee couldn't bother Katie in the kitchen, and it was rainin' too. Deedee just wandered through the house, like she had lost her last friend, and then she would come back to Marthy and ask for “laim.” She wouldn't have nothing to do with her toys, and she wouldn't sew with a pin, and she wouldn't sit at the table and write, and she wouldn't look at the photygraft book. And the worst of it was that she wouldn't keep still a minute.