April explored the waterholes along the gap for stones to prop her house on. Some had to be cut, shaved, made small. Hoisting it, smoothing the floor—was a man's job. Plenty of stones, dug up, stolen, at night or early dawn, from obscure vacant spots in the village, to be used in myriad ways. That done, the hammering began. At Locust Hall it must have been a magnet for rusty nails. It took more muscle than was at the command of a woman to swing them out of their sockets. Often an adamant one sent April reeling against the breadfruit tree. Did she have to take them out, at all? Yes. No old nails in her house for her. Wall pockets, too, had to be put in. The lamp, a brilliant one, was crowned with a violet dome.
III
Down through the spine of the lane was a watercourse. Fish—blue, gold, crimson—whirled languidly in it. And from the watercourse sounds came. Busy buttering the soft part that was not exposed to the sun, of the banana leaf into which she was to spread the cornmeal and spice and molasses and then tightly fold to make the conkee, April was quick to hear it. The kids squabbling again.
She put down the platter and made for the watercourse. Zenona, the nanny goat, scampered away at her rustling approach.
"Alfie, wha' is it?" she cried, running up.
"He hit my Crump," said Zink Diggs, bivouacked on the fringe of the land, a switch twirling in her hand.
"It ent!" the boy retorted, crying.
"Who tell he fo' hit my Crump?"
"He han' too fast."
"Are dat so?" said April, boiling with rage. "Hey, a big neygah uman like yo' hit a little boy like dis. Yo' ort to be ashamed o' yo' dutty self." She clasped the boy against her knees. He was slyly eying, through a shiny mist, Crump's mother with the rod in her hand.