A pale pink dyed Miss Minerva's thin, sallow face.
“I am not a married woman,” she replied, curtly, “and I most assuredly would not permit any oaths to be used on my premises.”
“Well, Uncle Jimmy-Jawed Jup'ter is jest nach'elly boon' to cuss,—he's got a repertation to keep up,” said Billy.
He sat down in a chair in front of his aunt, crossed his legs and smiled confidentially up into her face.
“Hell an' damn is jest easy ev'y day words to that nigger. I wish you could hear him cuss on a Sunday jest one time, Aunt Minerva; he'd sho' make you open yo' eyes an' take in yo' sign. But Aunt Cindy don't 'low me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln to say nothin' 't all only jest 'darn' tell we gits grown mens, an' puts on long pants.”
“Wilkes Booth Lincoln?” questioned his aunt.
“Ain't you never hear teller him?” asked the child. “He's ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's boy; an' Peruny Pearline,” he continued enthusiastically, “she ain't no ord'nary nigger, her hair ain't got nare kink an' she's got the grandes' clo'es. They ain't nothin' snide 'bout her. She got ten chillens an' ev'y single one of 'em's got a diff'unt pappy, she been married so much. They do say she got Injun blood in her, too.”
Miss Minerva, who had been standing prim, erect, and stiff, fell limply into a convenient rocking chair, and looked closely at this orphaned nephew who had come to live with her.
She saw a beautiful, bright, attractive, little face out of which big, saucy, grey eyes shaded by long curling black lashes looked winningly at her; she saw a sweet, childish, red mouth, a mass of short, yellow curls, and a thin but graceful little figure.
“I knows the names of aller ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's chillens,” he was saying proudly: “Admiral Farragut Moses the Prophet Esquire, he's the bigges'; an' Alice Ann Maria Dan Step-an'-Go-Fetch-It, she had to nuss all the res.'; she say fas' as she git th'oo nussin' one an' 'low she goin' to have a breathin' spell here come another one an' she got to nuss it. An' the nex' is Mount Sinai Tabernicle, he name fer the church where of Aunt BlueGum Tempy's Peruny Pearline takes her sackerment; an' the nex' is First Thessalonians; Second Thessalonians, he's dead an' gone to the Bad Place 'cause he skunt a cat,—I don't mean skin the cat on a actin' role like me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln does,—he skunt a sho' 'nough cat what was a black cat, what was a ole witch, an' she come back an' ha'nt him an' he growed thinner an' thinner an' weasler an' weasler, tell finely he wan't nothin' 't all but a skel'ton, an' the Bad Man won't 'low nobody 't all to give his parch' tongue no water, an' he got to, ever after amen, be toast on a pitchfork. An' Oleander Magnolia Althea is the nex',” he continued, enumerating Peruny Pearline's offspring on his thin, well molded fingers, “she got the seven year itch; an' Gettysburg, an' Biddle-&-Brothers-Mercantile-Co.; he name fer the sto' where ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline gits credit so she can pay when she fetches in her cotton in the fall; an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln, him an' me's twins, we was borned the same day only I's borned to my mama an' he's borned to his 'n an' Doctor Jenkins fetched me an' Doctor Shacklefoot fetched him. An' Decimus Ultimus,”—the little boy triumphantly put his right forefinger on his left little one, thus making the tenth, “she's the baby an' she's got the colic an' cries loud 'nough to wake up Israel; Wilkes Booth Lincoln say he wish the little devil would die. Peruny Pearline firs' name her 'Doctor Shacklefoot' 'cause he fetches all her chillens, but the doctor he say that ain't no name fer a girl, so he name her Decimus Ultimus.”