Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/168

 flesh chillen. A heart child is always a blossom. I dunno how-come-so, but it's so. Unex is a heart child, honey, and dat ought to make you glad, instead o sad."

Unex, who had become a thin, tall, solemn-faced baby, sat in a box near the fire, listening and sucking at a rind of bacon, watching Maum Hannah and Mary with big, round, unwinking eyes.

"Poor creeter," Maum Hannah pitied him. "E is hungry as e only can be. Looka how e strives to get a lil meat off dat skin. I declare to Gawd, it pure hurts me to my heart to see how dat child is gone back. E come into de world as fine as anybody. Now look at em; po as a snake; hands no bigger'n a possum paw. I'm gwine to tell you de Gawd's truth, Si May-e; it might sound hard to say so, but if you let dat child dead, Gawd'll hold it against you. You nurses you troubles more'n you child. If you'd quit cherishin sorrow so much an' give all dat time to Unex, you weuld be better off."

Maum Hannah grunted and got up, then limped to the door to go, when a sudden thought struck her. "May-e, gal," she called out, "I know what would help you a lot; you ought to smoke. A pipe is good to help people when dey is worried in dey mind.