“Well,” says Magpie, “I reckon we might as well mosey along, Ike. Come on, family man.”
I picks up that squawking bundle of humanity, hitches up my belt and follers Magpie over to the track, where we points north. I reckon we got dumped off in a country where there never was no cause to build a town.
Then that offspring begins to raise its voice in protest. Sounded to me like Andy Johnson trying to play sentimental music on a squeeze organ when he’s full to the neck with hooch. I pikes along behind Magpie, trying to keep my mind off that suffering bunch of misery. But it ain’t no use.
“What do you reckon has got into the critter?” I asks, and Magpie stops.
“A feller what don’t know any more about babies than you do, Ike, sure is liable to mistake one for a pair of boots,” says he sarcastic-like. “The thing is hungry. My gosh! What are you doing—carrying it upside down? Give it to me! Feller like you hadn’t ought to never pack a kid. Poor little jasper is hungry as ——!”
“Likely starved to death,” I agrees. “But that ain’t no reason for you to use that kind of language before you finds out the sex. It’s as much my baby as yours, Magpie, and I ain’t going to raise no female child to swear like a mule-skinner. Sabe? What’s it hungry for?”
“Hungry for?”
Magpie stubs his toe and almost drops the baby.
“Gosh dang the blasted luck!” he yelps, “Tore a toe plumb off!”
“Hungry for what?” I asks again.