Papa just stared and stared at the split wood. Now and then he’d fit it together the way it was. Once he spoke, real quiet. “Measure, you sure you got all them pieces?”

Measure said, “Ever single bit, Pa, I couldn’t’ve got more with a broom. I couldn’t’ve got more if I’d bent down and lapped it up like a dog.”

Ma was listening, of course. Papa once said that when Ma was paying attention, she could hear a squirrel fart in the woods a half mile away in the middle of a storm with the girls rattling dishes and the boys all chopping wood. Alvin Junior wondered sometimes if that meant Ma knew more witchery than she let on, since one time he sat in the woods not three yards away from a squirrel for more than an hour, and he never heard it so much as belch.

Anyway, she was right there in the house tonight, so of course she heard what Papa asked, and she heard what Measure answered, and her being as crazy as Papa, she lashed out like as if Measure had just taken the name of the Lord. “You mind your tongue, young man, because the Lord said unto Moses on the mount, honor your father and mother that your days may be long on the land which the Lord your God has given you, and when you speak fresh to your father then you are taking days and weeks and even years off your own life, and your soul is not in such a condition that you should welcome an early visit to the judgment bar to meet your Savior and hear him say your eternal fate!”

Measure wasn’t half so worried about his eternal fate as he was worried about Mama being riled at him. He didn’t try to argue that he wasn’t talking smart or being sassy—only a fool would do that when Mama was already hot. He just started in looking humble and begging her pardon, not to mention the forgiveness of Papa and the sweet mercy of the Lord. By the time she was done with ragging him, poor Measure had already apologized a half a dozen times, so that she finally just grumped and went back to her sewing.

Then Measure looked up at Alvin Junior and winked.

“I saw that,” said Mama, “and if you don’t go to hell, Measure, I’ll get up a petition to Saint Peter to send you there.”

“I’d sign that petition myself,” said Measure, looking meek as a puppy dog that just piddled on a big man’s boot.

“That’s right you would,” said Mama, “and you’d sign it in blood, too, because by the time I’m through with you there’ll be enough open wounds to keep ten clerks in bright red ink for a year.”