"It's that hateful little Jersey," mother said, starting up and going toward the kitchen. "He has his head caught in the fence again!"
"You sit still," I said, drawing her back toward her chair, "I'll go and send Penates to unfasten him."
There were savory odors in the kitchen, and mammy was so interested in the final outcome of the meal that she had abandoned her temporary throne and was stirring around the stove as usual. The three little negroes were gathered at the window, looking out into the blackness and listening with enjoyable horror at the turbulent sounds from the cow-lot.
"Go and unfasten him, Penates," I said. "He'll kill himself and us, too, with that noise!"
But Penates looked at me to see if I could be in earnest. When he saw that I was he began to whine.
"I's a-skeered to!" he half whimpered.
"The idea! A great big boy like you! What are you afraid of?"
"Granny's done tol' us the devil's gwiner ketch us," he began, and, as he saw mother coming in at the kitchen door, he looked appealingly toward her; but the nerve-racking strain of the afternoon had done its work with her—and the calf voice was something frightful!
"Your granny's an old idiot," she said forcefully, looking with wrath toward the stove, where mammy was peering into the oven in an entirely detached fashion. "You go straight and unfasten that calf!"
"Mis' Mary, I declare he'll ketch me ef I so much as step outside the do' there in the dark! Granny's jus' now tol' us he's watchin' ever' minute to ketch us—"