He stole a sidelong glance at her from under his bushy eyebrows, to see
the effect of his remark. She tossed her head defiantly. "I 'low if the
choice was left to the 'simmon or you eithah, brer Billy, you'd both
take the greenness an' the puckah befo' the fros'bite every time." Then
a tone of complaint trembled in her voice.

"I might a needed chastenin' in my youth, I don't 'spute that; but why
should I now, a trim'lin' on the aidge of the tomb, almos', have to put
up with that limb of a John Jay? If my poah Ellen knew what a tawment
her boy is to her ole mammy, I know she couldn't rest easy in her
grave."

"John Jay, he don't mean to be bad," remarked Uncle Billy soothingly.
"It's jus' 'cause he's so young an' onthinkin'. An' aftah all, it ain't
what he _does_. It's mo' like what the white folks say in they church up
on the hill. 'I have lef' undone the things what I ought to 'uv done.'"

Doubled up out of sight, behind the bushes that lined the roadside
ditch, John Jay held his breath and listened. When the ringing strokes
of the axe began again, he ventured to poke out his woolly head until
the whites of his eyes were visible. Sheba was trudging down the road
with her basket on her head, to the place where she always washed on
Tuesdays, she was far enough on her way now to make it safe for him to
come out of hiding.

The tears had dried on the boy's long curling lashes, but his bare legs
still smarted from the blows of the shingle, as he climbed slowly out of
the bushes and started back to the cabin.