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.