"Eatin' marl again," Coggins admonished, "eatin' marl again, you little vagabon'!"
Only the day before he had had to chastise her for sifting the stone dust and eating it.
"You're too hard ears," Coggins shouted, slapping her hands, "you're too hard ears."
Coggins turned into the gap for home, dragging her by the hand. He was too angry to speak ... too agitated.
Avoiding the jagged rocks in the gap, Beryl, her little body lost in the crocus bag frock jutting her skinny shoulders, began to cry. A gulping sensation came to Coggins when he saw Beryl crying. When Beryl cried, he felt like crying, too....
But he sternly heaped invective upon her. "Marl'll make yo' sick ... tie up yo' guts, too. Tie up yo' guts like green guavas. Don't eat it, yo' hear, don't eat no mo' marl...."
No sooner had they reached home than Sissie began. "Eatin' marl again, like yo' is starved out," she landed a clout on Beryl's uncombed head. "Go under de bed an' lay down befo' I crack yo' cocoanut...."
Running a house on a dry-rot herring bone, a pint of stale, yellowless corn meal, a few spuds, yet proud, thumping the children around for eating scraps, for eating food cooked by hands other than hers ... Sissie....
"Don't talk to de child like dat, Sissie."