City and town life -- Fiction; Diary fiction; Girls -- Fiction; Love stories, American
I ran to the well and got the water, but coming back by mother's room
I saw that Brother Sheffield was facing the door and would have seen
me, which wouldn't have been nice to bring out a box and puff before a
man, much less a preacher, so I didn't get the powder. I told Aunt
Laura to get Bertha's, when she commenced fussing, for I had passed
her room and saw that she had dressed in a big hurry and left the
bureau unlocked, the room being very hot and dark, the baby being
asleep, on account of the flies. She hushed then and said for me to go
down and tell him that she would be out in a few minutes, which I did.
I left him on the porch fanning while I went out to a little place I
have under the porch where it is nice and quiet and they can't find
you reading fairy tales when they want you for something; but _you_
can hear _them_ talking.
Pretty soon Aunt Laura came out, and in her dressed-up voice commenced
telling him how sorry she was that she kept him waiting. But before
she had more than got it said he asked her excited-like what was the
matter with her. It seemed like when he got excited she did too, so
she grabbed her stomach (not that I saw her, but I know she always
does it here lately when she gets mad or scared) and said:
"Oh, my heart! It must be the heart disease!"
He interrupted her again, a heap too quick and sharp for a preacher:
"Your heart _nothing_! Go and look at your _face_!"
That was more than I could stand, so out from under the porch I slid,
just in time to see Aunt Laura, with her face as red as the Indians
they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could
look at herself in the hat-rack looking-glass. She gave one tremendous
yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying
in from where they were. It wasn't a minute before me and Brother
Sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in
off of the back porch, and Dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning
over the banisters to see what was the matter.
"It's my death stroke," Aunt Laura said, just like she knew what she
was talking about. "The doctor's books say it comes on this way," she
kept on, while the preacher fanned her and we were all flying around
doing things for her, and me standing still wondering how on earth
come her face so fiery red. "Thank Heaven, I die in the conviction of
having lived a good life, _and_ willed all my money to the only member
of my family that has ever treated me with any respect." This did look
kinder like the truth, for the baby was the only member of the family
which was crying over this sad occasion; but she was very loud and
hard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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