"Automobile? Oh, my! Let's go! We gotta see that! There's not many traveling our road yet. Get me my stick there in the corner, sugar. I'm sure proud Hawk phoned."
I had a hard time trying to catch up with Grandpa. He wasn't waiting for me—or his walking cane. And he was almost out to the front yard gate before I could hand it to him.
Mama was unlatching the gate.
"Nannie, where's Wiley? And Mildredge? They don't want to miss seeing a automobile!'
Before Mama could tell Grandpa that Mildredge, as he always called Mierd, was over at Aunt Lovie's, we saw Wiley come bounding across the corner of our yard, heading toward the road.
Trixie was right with him, and he and that red mammy hound didn't even look at us, or the gate. Side by side, they skirted around Mama's cape jasmine bush and went over the fence in one big leap—like they'd been practicing together for days, Grandpa said.
"I declare to my soul!" Mama cried. "Wiley, you tore your pants!"
Mama always said "I declare to my soul" when something went wrong. If Papa had been there, he would have said "Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt!" That's what he hollered when anything bad happened—torn pants or anything else.
Grandma Ming said the reason Papa wouldn't say nothing but Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt was because my mama was a preacher's daughter, and she wouldn't stand for "poor Jodie doing no cussing."
Grandpa thought Wiley's tearing the back end of his britches on the yard fence was all right.