“Apologize for what?” I says. “I merely wondered if the child was normal, that’s all. Now that she’s proved she is, why, I have nothing further to say.”

But Mama just turned on her heel and flew out, furious. She ran right upstairs and hugged the baby. She believed it was adopted. Stella-Rondo hadn’t done a thing but turn her against me from upstairs while I stood there helpless over the hot stove. So that made Mama, Papa-Daddy and the baby all on Stella-Rondo’s side.

Next, Uncle Rondo.

I must say that Uncle Rondo has been marvelous to me at various times in the past and I was completely unprepared to be made to jump out of my skin, the way it turned out. Once Stella-Rondo did something perfectly horrible to him—broke a chain letter from Flanders Field—and he took the radio back he had given her and gave it to me. Stella-Rondo was furious! For six months we all had to call her Stella instead of Stella-Rondo, or she wouldn’t answer. I always thought Uncle Rondo had all the brains of the entire family. Another time he sent me to Mammoth Cave, with all expenses paid.

But this would be the day he was drinking that prescription, the Fourth of July.

So at supper Stella-Rondo speaks up and says she thinks Uncle Rondo ought to try to eat a little something. So finally Uncle Rondo said he would try a little cold biscuits and ketchup, but that was all. So she brought it to him.

“Do you think it wise to disport with ketchup in Stella-Rondo’s flesh-colored kimono?” I says. Trying to be considerate! If Stella-Rondo couldn’t watch out for her trousseau, somebody had to.

“Any objections?” asks Uncle Rondo, just about to pour out all the ketchup.

“Don’t mind what she says, Uncle Rondo,” says Stella-Rondo. “Sister has been devoting this solid afternoon to sneering out my bedroom window at the way you look.”

“What’s that?” says Uncle Rondo. Uncle Rondo has got the most terrible temper in the world. Anything is liable to make him tear the house down if it comes at the wrong time.

So Stella-Rondo says, “Sister says, ‘Uncle Rondo certainly does look like a fool in that pink kimono!’”

Do you remember who it was really said that?

Uncle Rondo spills out all the ketchup and jumps out of his chair and tears off the kimono and throws it down on the dirty floor and puts his foot on it. It had to be sent all the way to Jackson to the cleaners and re-pleated.

“So that’s your opinion of your Uncle Rondo, is it?” he says. “I look like a fool, do I? Well, that’s the last straw. A whole day in this house with nothing to do, and then to hear you come out with a remark like that behind my back!”