Wy-wy—if I were in your p-p-place, Gene—wy I’d just forget it…. It’s all over now—and it would only worry M-m-m-mama if you t-t-told her about it—Wy-wy—the whole f’ing’s over now… those—wy—those cheap nigger-Baptist South Car’lina sons of bitches—wy-wy—just saw the chance of m-m-making a martyr of you—so I’d j-j-just forget about it—It’s all over now—Wy-wy—f-f-f-forget it!” he cried earnestly. “I—I—wy I wouldn’t fink about it again!”
But the younger one, seeing the light that burned warmly behind the drawn shades of the parlour, set his sick heart and his grim face desperately towards the light, shook his head silently, and then walked grimly towards the house.
He found his mother and his sister seated together in the parlour before the fire. In another moment, almost before their first startled words of greeting were out of their mouths, he was blurting out the story of his drunkenness, arrest, and imprisonment. As he went on, he could see his mother’s face, white, serious, eagerly curious, fixed upon him, and her powerful, deliberate, and curiously flexible mouth which she pursed constantly, darting her eyes at him from time to time with the quick, startled attentiveness of an animal or a bird, as she said sharply: “Hah?… What say?… The police, you say?… Jail?… Who was with you—hah? Emmet Blake?… Weaver?… How much did they fine you—hah?”
Meanwhile his sister sat listening quietly, with an absent yet intent look in her eyes, stroking her large cleft chin in a reflective manner with her big hand, smiling a little, and saying from time to time:
“Ah-hah?… And what did Blake say then?… What did you say to the nigger when you saw him in the cell?… Ah-hah…. They didn’t abuse you, did they?… Did they hurt you when they hit you?… Ah-hah…. And what did Luke say when he saw you looking through the bars?” She snickered hoarsely, and then, taking him by the hand, turned to her mother and in a kindly yet derisive tone said:
“Here’s your Harvard boy…. What do you think of your baby now?” And seeing the gloomy and miserable look upon his face, she laughed her high, husky, and derisive falsetto, prodding him in the ribs with her big finger, saying: “K-k-k-k!… This is our Harvard boy!… Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi!… Here’s your baby son, Miss Eliza!” Then, releasing his hand and turning to her mother, she said in a good-natured tone, in which yet a kind of melancholy satisfaction was evident: “
