You know, Aunt Dicey,” she began a little complacently after listening awhile to Aunt Dicey’s unqualified abuse of her own son, Wilkins, who was dining-room boy at Mr. Hallet’s, “you know that stranger gentleman up to Mr. Hallet’s? he want’ to make my popa’s picture; an’ he say’ he goin’ put it in one fine Mag’zine yonda.”
Aunt Dicey spat upon her iron to test its heat. Then she began to snicker. She kept on laughing inwardly, making her fat body shake, and saying nothing.
“W’at you laughin’ bout, Aunt Dice?” inquired Martinette mistrustfully.
“I isn’ laughin’, chile!”
“Yas, you’ laughin’.”
“Oh, don’t pay no ‘tention to me. I jis studyin’ how simple you an’ yo’ pa is. You is bof de simplest somebody I eva com ‘crost.”
“You got to say plumb out w’at you mean, Aunt Dice,” insisted the girl doggedly, suspicious and alert now.
“Well, dat w’y I say you is simple,” proclaimed the woman, slamming down her iron on an inverted, battered pie pan, “jis like you says, dey gwine put yo’ pa’s picture yonda in de picture paper. An’ you know w’at readin’ dey gwine sot down on’neaf dat picture?” Martinette was intensely attentive. “Dey gwine sot down on’neaf: ‘Dis heah is one dem low-down ‘Cajuns o’ Bayeh Têche!’”
The blood flowed from Martinette’s face, leaving it deathly pale; in another instant it came beating back in a quick flood, and her eyes smarted with pain as if the tears that filled them had been fiery hot.
“I knows dem kine o’ folks,” continued Aunt Dicey, resuming her interrupted ironing. “Dat stranger he got a li’le boy w’at ain’t none too big to spank. Dat li’le imp he come a hoppin’ in heah yistiddy wid a kine o’ box on’neaf his arm. He say’ ‘Good mo’nin’’, madam. Will you be so kine an’ stan’ jis like you is dah at yo’ I’onin’, an’ lef me take yo’ picture?’ I ‘lowed I gwine make a picture outen him wid dis heah flati’on, ef he don’ cl’ar hisse’f quick. An’ he say he baig my pardon fo’ his intrudement. All dat kine o’ talk to a ole nigga ‘oman! Dat plainly sho’ he don’ know his place.”
“W’at you want ‘im to say, Aunt Dice?” asked Martinette, with an effort to conceal her distress.
“I wants ‘im to come in heah an’ say: ‘Howdy, Aunt Dicey! will you be so kine and go put on yo’ noo calker dress an’ yo’ bonnit w’at you w’ars to meetin’, an’ stan’ ‘side f’om day i’onin-boa’d w’ilse I gwine take yo’ photygraph.’ Dat de way fo’ a boy to talke w’at had good raisin’.”
