Page:Hell-Bent fer Heaven (Hughes 1924).pdf/24

10

You didn’t have to be; you wusn’t a-goin’ to as big a war.

Size ain’t everything in a war! They was bigger men in the one I went to!

Well, I dunno. We had Pershin’ an’ Fotch.

[Contemptuously]

Pershin’ an’ Fotch! Chiggers an’ seed-ticks! Knee-high to a gnat ’longside o’ Stonewall Jackson an’ Robert E. Lee!

Lord! Sid hain’t no more ’n stepped in the house, an’ you start fightin’ your ole wars all over ag’in!

[Chuckles wisely]

She’s dis’p’inted in you, Sid. You’re too robustious to suit her. She’s been hopin’ you’d come back sorter peakin’ an’ pinin’ so she could mammy you an’ fatten you up.