“Did have!” she contradicted flatly. “Lucette buyed it.”
“Off of a wop—I mean, a man—with a big basket full of them down by the gate?” McCarty asked. “A big basket with a lot of balloons, red and blue and purple ones?”
Maudie nodded.
“Big bastik!” she affirmed. “Lucette buyed balloon an’ I tooked it into the man’s house where he made the music.”
She was evidently trying hard to remember and McCarty waited but the effort proving vain he prompted:
“You broke the balloon while the man was making the music, didn’t you?—When you got down off Lucette’s lap to play around, didn’t you break the pretty balloon?”
“Didn’t bwoke it!” Maudie shook her curls decidedly. “Dave it to Lucette.”
“Whilst the man was making the music?” McCarty persisted.
“No. Lucette tooked it when we went into the man’s house, where the garden is an’ the fing that makes the music.—Want my balloon!”
The corners of the rosebud mouth drooped pitifully and a premonitory moisture dimmed her eyes.