“You talk to it a sight more than you do to anybody else, Jane,” the mother said. “Don't put anything but its little shimmy on; it's goin' to be another hot day.”
“I believe,” the girl said, “I'll get some water in the tub, and wash her all over. There'll be time enough.”
“It'd be a good thing, I reckon. But you mustn't forget your milkin'. I dunno what our cow'd do this morning if it wasn't for Joey. But he'll milk her, him and Benny Hingston, between them, somehow. Benny stayed with him last night.”
“I did forget the milking,” the girl said, putting the baby's little chemise on. “But I'll do it now. Sissy will have to wait till after breakfast for her washing.” She got the tin bucket from where it blazed a-tilt in the sun beside the back door of the cabin, and took her deep bonnet from its peg. She did not ask why the boys slept alone in the cabin, but her aunt felt that she must explain.
“Laban's got work for the whole fall at the Cross Roads. He went straight back last night. I come here.” She had got through without telling the lie which she feared she must. “I'm goin' home after breakfast.”
Jane asked nothing further, but called from the open door, “Sukey, Sukey! Suk, Suk, Suk!” A plaintive lowing responded; then the snapping sound of a cow's eager hoofs; the hoarse drumming of the milk in the bucket followed, subduing itself to the soft final murmur of the strippings in the foam. Jane carried the milk to the spring house before she reappeared in the cabin with a cup of it for the baby.
“It's so good for her to have it warm from the cow,” she said, as she tilted the tin for the last drop on the little one's lips. “I wish you'd leave her here with me, Aunt Nancy.”
“It's about time she was weaned,” the mother said. “I reckon you better call your father now. He must be ready for his breakfast, bendin' over that tobacco ever since sun-up.”
Jane took down the tin dinner horn from its peg, and went to the back door with it, and blew a long, loud blast, crumbling away in broken sounds.
The baby was beating the air with its hands up and down, and gurgling its delight in the noise when she came back. “Oh, honey, honey, honey!” she cooed, catching it up and hugging it to her.