"He'll ketch fire, if you don't mind," she added. "Move him to the other side of the room."
"Do it yourself," retorted the checks-player. "It's my turn now, an' I can't stop for nothin'. One, two, three!"
"We'll see 'bout that, my lady, when ma comes in," said the other, in an elder-sisterly tone, and a step in the passage giving notice of the threatened "coming," Calley missed the marble she had meant to catch upon the back of her hand, and turning over on her side, made a long arm to drag the baby by his frock away from the hearth.
Thus suddenly attacked in the rear, the luckless infant lost his balance and pitched over upon his forehead. The thump was followed by a terrific howl.
"I declar' you children are enough to w'ar anybody's life out of her!" exclaimed Mrs. Grigsby, picking up the screaming child and beginning to rub his forehead hard with the palm of her hand—"to scatter the bruise," she would have said if asked why she did it. "Thar, thar, deary! ma's sugar pie! I should 'a' thought some on you might 'a' hendered him from ketchin' sech a fall as that. Calley, give me one o' them sugar rags to stop his mouth!"
The sugar rags were small squares of old linen or muslin, in which were tied up cold boiled rice or stale bread and brown sugar. Each was of the shape and size of a marble, and, before it was given to the baby, was dipped in milk, or, if milk were not at hand, in water. The smallest Grigsby's howl subsided into a queer whine, like that of a choking puppy, and this into an intermittent grunt, as his mother trotted him on her knee, holding the sugar rag in his mouth all the while.
"I come in to arsk ef any you children has any idea whar your sister Flea is," she was saying, when she could talk down the baby. "I've been a-callin' of her upsta'rs an' down-sta'rs an' all over the place, an' she ain't nowhar to be foun'. Your pa he's gone to the stable to see ef she's crawled up inter the hay-lof', or some sech outlandish place, an' gone to sleep. That chile's as wild as a hawk. You never know what she'll be up to nex'. She'll get los' sure 'nough some o' these days, an' then thar it will be!"
"She's got the right name," giggled Bea. "She's jest like a flea—when you put your finger on her, she ain't there."
"It's no laughin' matter, I ken tell you, Mr. Dee!" retorted his mother, as Dee's snicker answered his sister's giggle. "Well, pa," as her husband entered, "any sign o' her?"
Mr. Grigsby, a tall lean man with sandy hair and whiskers, who looked and spoke like a person with more sense and far more education than the wife he had married fifteen years before for her pretty face and good housekeeping, stalked up to the hearth, shaking the wet from his coat into the fire, after the manner of a huge water-dog. Dee drew back to escape from the flying drops, and Bea put her embroidery behind her. Neither ventured to complain. Their father was kind and just to them, but he was master in his own house, and not to be trifled with when his face was as black as they now saw it. His voice was naturally harsh, and he had a touch of the Scotch "burr" in his speech. He spoke roughly and angrily: