“You done it yo'self,” defended the boy in front with rising passion. “Squeeze in, Jimmy; we jes' boun' to git outer this 'fore somebody finds it out.”
He backed the other child close to the wall and pressed so hard against him that Jimmy screamed aloud and began to pound him on the head with his chubby fists.
Billy would not submit tamely to any such treatment. He reached his hand behind him and gave the smaller boy's cheek a merciless pinch. The fight was on. The two little boys, laced up tightly as they were in a stout pair of stays, pinched and scratched, and kicked and jerked. Suddenly Billy, leaning heavily against Jimmy, threw him flat on his back and fell on top of him.
Bennie Dick, sitting on the floor, had up to this time watched the proceedings with an interested eye; now, thinking murder was being committed, he opened his big, red mouth and emitted a howl that could be heard half a mile. It immediately brought his mother to the open door. When she saw the children squirming on the floor in her only corset, her indignation knew no bounds.
“You, Jimmy Garner, an' you, too, William Hill, yuh little imps o' Satan, what you doin' in my house? didn't yo' mammy tell you not to tamper wid me no mo'? Git up an' come here an' lemme git my co'set off o' yuh.”
Angry as she was she could not keep from laughing at the sight they presented, as, with no gentle hand, she unclasped the hooks and released their imprisoned bodies.
“Billy all time—” began Jimmy.
“Billy all time nothin,” said Sarah Jane, “'tain't no use fo' to try to lay dis-here co'set business onto Billy; both o' yuh is ekally in it. An' me a-aimin' fo' to go to three fun'els dis week an' a baptizin' on Sunday. S'pose y' all'd bruck one o' de splints, how'd I look a-presidin' at a fun'el 'thout nare co'set on, an' me shape' like what I is?”
“Who's dead, Sarah Jane?” asked Jimmy, hoping to stem the torrent of her wrath.
“Sis' Mary Ellen's las' husban', Brudder Littlejohn—dat 's a-who,” she replied, somewhat mollified at his interest.