Looks like a ham, don't it? And see all them callouses on the palm. Ain't that a tool fit to break rock with? And what'd you say if I told you I used that once to hit that little, tender kid of mine? Actually hit her! What you say to that? I won't forgit that night soon, I tell you!
Just figger to yourself that it's sundown, and the blinds pulled down in the room where Deedee's cot was standin' like a little iron-barred cage. We got into the way of callin' the kid Deedee, that bein' what she called herself. There was all the signs that Deedee was goin' to sleep, and the plainest sign was Deedee herself, standin' up in her crib, wide awake, holdin' on to the foot of the crib, trampin' the sheets into a tangle of white underbrush, as you might say, and no more asleep than you are. The way Deedee went to sleep was like the death of an alligator--it was a long and strenuous affair.
Marthy stood lookin' at Deedee with reproaches in her eyes. We had a sort of tradition in the family that Deedee had to go to sleep quick and quiet, without any nonsense. Every night, when Marthy put the little white rascal in the crib, she had hopes that the tradition would come true, and every night it didn't. The go-to-sleep hour was the time Deedee seemed to pick out to have an hour of especial lively fun, and for weeks she had been breakin' the laws, and walkin' all over the rules with her pink feet. She did not see, comin' up over the horizon, and gittin' nearer every day, the stern and horrid Spank!
We had got together in a sort of family conclave and decided that Deedee was about old enough to be punished by layin' on of hands. We decided it one time when Deedee was out of the room, and we had been right stern about it. We could be stern about Deedee when she wasn't in sight. When she come smilin' and singin' along we generally had to quit bein' stern, and kiss her.
Deedee was twenty-two months old, and she was ninety-eight per cent, pure sweetness. Some of the women in our end of town said her short, curly hair was tow-colored, but it wasn't so--they was just envious of us. And one and all said her eyes was like round little bits of blue sky. It was clear enough that she had inherited her sweetness from Marthy; and some said it was equal clear that the two per cent, of unadulterated stubbornness come from me. I said so myself, but I didn't believe it.
