“You’ve upset my attar of rose upon your head!” screamed Betty. “Go out of doors this minute, and I’ll hand you over to Uncle Cesar for a real switching this time.”
By that time Aunt Tulip had dashed in from the kitchen, and, seizing Kettle by his woolly head, dragged him out of doors to the pump, calling meanwhile for Uncle Cesar, working in the garden.
“Cesar! You Cesar! Come heah right away, an’ bring my big scissors. This heah wuffless little black nigger done tooken all Miss Betty’s attar of rose an’ done rub it into he haid, an’ arter you git the scissors, cut a switch an’ give him a good tunin’ up.”
This terrifying prospect entirely upset Kettle’s moral balance, and he began to protest, spluttering and stuttering, as Aunt Tulip pumped water vigorously on his offending head.
“I ’clar ter goodness, I ain’ never see Miss Betty’s attar of rose. I ain’ never tetch it.”
At that, Aunt Tulip stopped pumping on Kettle long enough to shake him violently.
“Does you know where liars go?” cried Aunt Tulip indignantly. “Doan’ you know nothin’ ’bout the lake burnin’ wid fire an’ brimstone, an’ the devil stan’in’ by wid a red hot pitchfork, stickin’ it into dem sinners?”
This awful future, the arrival of Uncle Cesar with the scissors, Aunt Tulip’s merciless use of them on his wool, and Uncle Cesar’s going off after a switch, brought shrieks from Kettle, as if he were being murdered by inches. Betty, in the house, hearing Kettle’s screams, ran out, and Uncle Cesar reappeared at the same moment with a switch of horrifying proportions. Poor Kettle, with every scrap of wool cut off his head, leaving his skull as bare as an egg, was so drenched and frightened and woebegone, that Betty’s heart melted.
“I think, Uncle Cesar,” she said, “we won’t give Kettle that switching to-day, though he certainly deserves it.”
Uncle Cesar was loth to lay aside the instrument of torture.