“Now, sir!” he flung out defiantly.
“Stand in the middle of the room,” and Lewis began to roll up his shirt sleeves. Josh closed his eyes for a moment. Where was the stick or whip? Did the young gentleman mean to spank him like a baby? That would be too much. Even Aunt Mandy had given up spanking years and years ago.
“Ugh!”
Josh jumped as something struck him suddenly and remembered, as a drowning man might, an incident in his childhood when Aunt Mandy was still in the spanking era. She had gone for him with a hair brush and had inadvertently turned the brush up-side-down and he had got the full benefit of the bristles on his bare hide.
Lewis had turned on the shower full force and the little new potato was emerging from its coating of Mother Earth. Gasping and spluttering, Josh stood his ground. He wanted to run into a far corner to escape this terrible fusillade, but an inward grit that was greater than the outward show made him stay in the spot where his commander had first placed him. Lewis gradually lessened the force of the shower and once more the culprit could breathe. He gave a long, gasping sigh and then grinned into the face of his monitor.
“Gee, that was the wust beatin’ we uns ever got! Somehow all the nigger-hate ain’t washed out’n we unses’ hide yit. Mebbe you uns had best turn it on agin.”
“All right, but take this soap first and lather yourself all over.”
That was more than Josh had bargained for, but the soap was nice and fresh smelling and the lather came without labor. This form of ablution was very different from what Josh had been accustomed to. His idea of a bath had always been first the toting of much water from the spring, a truly difficult task, for, with the short sightedness of country people, of course their cabin was built far above the spring instead of below it. This letting gravity help do the work is a comparatively new thing and one that country people have not generally adopted. Then, to Josh, the bath meant chopping of more wood to make the fire to heat the water. Then a steaming wash tub and the doughty Aunt Mandy equipped with a can of foul-smelling, home-made soft soap and a scrubbing brush.
This delightful tingling of his unaccustomed skin with the nice white soap was a sensation that seemed to Josh the most wonderful he had ever experienced. All of these delights with no labor attached to the enjoyment of them! Just turn a handle and there you are, clean and cool, laundried while you wait.
“Kin we uns do this every week?”