Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/224

220 settin' by the time she gits started on another. I been laid up in the baid nigh onto twenty years. At the fust beginning it seemed ter me lak I couldn't stan' it. I done been a busy, active nigger all my time an' fer it ter fall ter me jes' ter spen' my time a layin' up in the baid wa' so hard I pretty nigh los' my 'ligion. I couldn't see why the good Gawd didn't sen' the 'fliction on some ooman what took it as a treat ter lay up in the baid. The idea er knittin' an' tattin' ain't come ter me at that time, but I jes' lay up an' fretted an' grumbled. I got took bad at Christmus an' come Feb'ua'y I wa' so tired er myself that I nigh went crazy. It wa' a late winter that year—col' weather commencin' on about Feb'ua'y, an' that wa' a sho' sign er late spring. I had always been a great han' at raisin' chick'ns an' I got ter worryin' over how late the hens would be a goin' ter settin' owin' ter the col' weather an then the thought comed ter me that I mought take the place of a hen. I got Si ter bring me in a settin' an' sho' 'nough I wa' jes' as good a hen as you kin fin'. That year me'n Brer Johnson had fryin' size chick'ns ter sell ter the quality long befo' anybody roun' these parts."

"How many times do you set a year, Aunt Pearly Gates?"