Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/173

 he had finished, he smiled a one-sided smile and said very kindly, "Now, Si May-e, I'm a done-talk man. I hope I ain' wasted my breath."

Mary tried to smile and to sound brave as she answered, "No, Budda you ain' wasted em. I know good an' well all you say is de Gawd's truth. I know I ain' doin right. I'm gwine to learn to smoke. Auntie left her pipe here for me to learn how to smoke on. E said smokin would help me to stop bein so nervish an' down-hearted."

"Sho e will, if you learn how to smoke right an' not careless an' wrong," Budda declared heartily. "Le me fill you pipe now, an' show you how."

A draft from the door took the smoke from Budda's pipe and swept it up the chimney as he filled his mother's for Mary, packing moist plug-cut tobacco into its small bowl, pinch by pinch. He laid a tiny coal on it and putting the stem in his mouth, pulled until the crumbs of tobacco glowed and he puffed out a mouthful of strong sweet smoke. He explained that most people burn up tobacco in a pipe and call it smoking. Smoking a pipe is not child's play. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it. His old grandfather, Daddy Champagne, dead long years ago, taught him how to smoke. Young people used to listen at what the old people tried