Willis drank his soup noisily, insisted upon eating with his knife, upset a glass of milk on Jane’s new Easter dress, and in the end was carried from the table kicking and screaming.
Mammy’s attempts to pacify him proved futile, and fearing the wrath of his father, she gathered up the squirming, screaming boy as best she could and ran to her own room in the rear. Letting him fall upon the bed, she breathlessly dropped into a chair, and wiped the perspiration from her face with the corner of her apron.
“Now, den, jes’ holl’r an’ kick, tell you hollers an’ kicks yo’se’f plum out.”
This the boy did at a length and with a violence unbelievable, Mammy sitting all the while at the side of the bed to see that he did not roll off and humming broken pieces of song as though perfectly unconcerned. When the screaming had spent itself, and naught remained of it but long hard sniffles, Mammy began mumbling, “Well, bless de Lawd, I bin thinkin’ I wus nussin’ er fuss class qual’ty chile all dis time, an’ hyah it tu’n out I bin wor’in’ m’se’f wid one er Sis’ Sow’s mis’r’ble little pigs.”
A low wail was the only answer to this thrust.
“Hit’s de trufe! An’ I done make up m’ mine I ain’t gwine do it no longer. What’s de use er me stayin’ hyah, nussin’ er pig chile, when I kin g’long an’ nuss er fuss class qual’ty chile like Mary Van, an’ I’m gwine do it, too!”
One little arm reached out to the old woman:
“Mammy!”
But she continued: “M’ye’rs is broke wid all dat pig holl’rin’! I don’t speck I ev’r is ter heah no mo’, neither!”