“Don’t contradict me, I would,” says Mama.

But I said she couldn’t convince me though she talked till she was blue in the face. Then I said, “Besides, you know as well as I do that that child is not adopted.”

“She most certainly is adopted,” says Mama, stiff as a poker.

I says, “Why, Mama, Stella-Rondo had her just as sure as anything in this world, and just too stuck up to admit it.”

“Why, Sister,” said Mama. “Here I thought we were going to have a pleasant Fourth of July, and you start right out not believing a word your own baby sister tells you!”

“Just like Cousin Annie Flo. Went to her grave denying the facts of life,” I remind Mama.

“I told you if you ever mentioned Annie Flo’s name I’d slap your face,” says Mama, and slaps my face.

“All right, you wait and see,” I says.

“I,” says Mama, “I prefer to take my children’s word for anything when it’s humanly possible.” You ought to see Mama, she weighs two hundred pounds and has real tiny feet.

Just then something perfectly horrible occurred to me.

“Mama,” I says, “can that child talk?” I simply had to whisper! “Mama, I wonder if that child can be—you know—in any way? Do you realize,” I says, “that she hasn’t spoken one single, solitary word to a human being up to this minute? This is the way she looks,” I says, and I looked like this.

Well, Mama and I just stood there and stared at each other. It was horrible!

“I remember well that Joe Whitaker frequently drank like a fish,” says Mama. “I believed to my soul he drank chemicals.” And without another word she marches to the foot of the stairs and calls Stella-Rondo.

“Stella-Rondo? O-o-o-o-o! Stella-Rondo!”

“What?” says Stella-Rondo from upstairs. Not even the grace to get up off the bed.

“Can that child of yours talk?” asks Mama.

Stella-Rondo says, “Can she what?”

“Talk! Talk!” says Mama. “Burdyburdyburdyburdy!”

So Stella-Rondo yells back, “Who says she can’t talk?”

“Sister says so,” says Mama.

“You didn’t have to tell me, I know whose word of honor don’t mean a thing in this house,” says Stella-Rondo.

And in a minute the loudest Yankee voice I ever heard in my life yells out, “OE’m Pop-OE the Sailor-r-r-r Ma-a-an!” and then somebody jumps up and down in the upstairs hall. In another second the house would of fallen down.

“Not only talks, she can tap-dance!” calls Stella-Rondo. “Which is more than some people I won’t name can do.”

“Why, the little precious darling thing!” Mama says, so surprised. “Just as smart as she can be!” Starts talking baby talk right there. Then she turns on me. “Sister, you ought to be thoroughly ashamed! Run upstairs this instant and apologize to Stella-Rondo and Shirley-T.”