“I’ll go in to her at once.”
“Stop!” says Buddy impressively.
“Wha’s the matter?”
“She died day after baby was born.”
“No?”
“Yassir. Stone dead. Sure’s I live.”
The poor hero breaks down and sobs and wails and howls and blubbers, distraction in his aspect, his knees knock together, he throws his hat in the dust—and all the while the audience is convulsed with laughter. The Negro women in the stalls find their chairs too small for them and all but fall on to the floor; the smartly dressed Negro youths in the boxes are guffawing from wide-opened mouths and laughing as much with their bodies as with their faces.
“Mother and I went to town to buy the coffin,” says Buddy. “Poor old Mother!”
“Did Mother forgive me?”
“Oh, yes, she forgave you all right. Such a mother as she was. She knew you were bad and wrong and a disgrace, but she loved you. Ah, how she loved you!”