Nookie looked at her with a feeling of mingled disappointment and disgust. Was Soongy trying to put on airs with her, and make believe she didn’t eat tchoupique? A fish she was raised on; like all the other poor colored folks living close to the swamp. A fish so fat and greasy, and so plentiful in all the muddy bayous and ditches, that everybody called it “Gawd’s feesh.” Something Gawd provided for His nigger people, to keep them in food when everything else failed. A fish that all the swamp niggers caught in the long summer time, and cut up and salted and dried in the sun; and hung up in their kitchens to last through the winter, when they couldn’t afford to buy fresh meat. And you didn’t have to catch them with a line, like you did other fish, either. All the children had to do when they went to the tchoupique pond: take a flour barrel, and knock out the two heads. Then, just “plump” it down in the water hard. And you never missed having ’most a barrel half-full, ready to scoop up with your hands, and throw out on the bank. Thinking of the unctuous court-bouillon and tchoupique stew she knew how to make, Nookie asked: “Soongy, you say you don’ eat shoe-pick?” “Who?” answered Soongy, with a superior air. “I jus’ as soon eat lamp-eel, as eat dat nasty slimy mud feesh. No ’ndeed, not me.” “I eats ’um, Miss Nookie,” sounded Dink’s pleasant announcement, as he came in from the next room; a pillow slip tied around his middle with a string. He went over to the table quietly and began washing the dishes. Soongy looked at him crossly, and shouted: “Boy! W’at in de name o’ Gawd you mean? Takin’ my nice clean pilluh slip off de bed, to splash it all up wid greasy dish water?... Go yonder in de room, an’ take dat pilluh slip off yo’ black body, an’ put it back whah it b’lonks; befo’ I stomps bofe yo’ livers down an’ beats you speechless!... You hyeah me?” Dink looked at her appealingly and left the room. “W’at make you don’ leave de boy put on ’is clo’se, Soongy?” Nookie asked, rebukingly. “Ain’ he gotta go yonder to Carmelite house wid you tonight, to play de comb an’ make music for de raffle?” “You leave Dink be,” Soongy advised her, curtly. “Dink got plenny time to put on ’is clo’se befo’ he go to Carmelite house. Dis now. Tonight ain’ come yet.” Not being in sympathy with Soongy’s views, Nookie was ready to argue in Dink’s behalf. “Soongy, w’at make you wan’ be so hard on Dink like you is; w’en all he doin’, is try’n to be decen’?” She asked. “You think mo’ ’bout yo’ pilluh slip gittin’ spoilt, den you does ’bout de boy ketchin’ ’is death o’ col’; runnin’ ’roun hyuh in ’is naked skin, wid all dis draf’ searchin’ over ’is body. You sho oughta be ’shame’.” Soongy looked up from her ironing, and answered impatiently: