I thought it was nice of him to say that, but I was so embarrassed that I got away from them as soon as I could. I went out to the kitchen to see if Mammy Lou was ready to stuff the turkey. Lares and Penates were on the floor playing with two little automobiles that Julius had brought them. Mammy Lou was fixing to cut up the liver in the gravy.
"Please don't," I began to beg her, "I'll go halves with Lares and Penates if you'll give it to me!"
"You don't deserve nothin'," she said, trying to look at me and not laugh. "I seen you out thar by the side gate, aggin' 'em on! Reckon you're in your glory, now that you've got a pair of 'em to spy on and write it all out in that pesky little book!"
"Oh, they ain't a pair!" I told her, slicing up the liver into three equal halves.
"They soon will be if they listen to you!"
"Never in this world! She says she never has cared for anybody but a person she calls 'Primitive Man!'"
"Dar now! I bet he fooled her!" she said with great pleasure, for next to a funeral she likes a fooling, and she is always excited when she forgets and says "Dar now." "If he has," she kept on, "she'd better do the nex' best thing and marry Mr. Gayle. He's got as good raisin' as ary man I ever seen, although he's a little pore. But they's some things I don't like about fat husban's—they can't scratch they own back!"
I was glad to keep her mind on marrying, for I thought I'd get a chance at the gizzard too, but she watched it like she watches her trunk-key when her son-in-law's around. I told her to go to the window and see what they were doing now, and she did it, poor old soul! When she came back the gizzard was gone, but she was so tickled that she didn't notice it.
"They've done paired off and gone down by the big tree to knock mistletoe out'n the top," she told me, her face shining with grease and happiness. "I knowed 'twould be a match! Needn't nuvver tell no nigger of my experience that folks is too smart to fall in love! Ever'body's got a little grain o' sense, no matter how deep it's covered with book-learnin'."
"Oh, they don't have to be smart at all," I told her, talking very fast to divert her mind from the gravy. "Father says if the back of a girl's neck is pretty she can get married if she hasn't sense enough to count the coppers in the contribution box."