Jonah's Gourd Vine by Zora Neale Hurston

granted him her special company.

CHAPTER 9
    Y ou Lucy!” Emmeline scolded as she struggled along behind John and Lucy on the way from church, “Ain’t Ah done tole yuh and tole yuh not tuh let no boys be puttin’ dey hand all over yuh? You John! You stay arm-length from dat gal and talk it out. You got uh tongue.”
    Lucy and John sniggered together slyly and walked an inch or two farther apart.
    â€œGood Gawd, dey could drive uh double team between us now,” John complained.
    â€œTalk loud, Ah don’t ’low no whisperin’ tuh no gal uh mine.”
    They talked about the preaching and the new hymn-books and the proposed church organ. Some were for the innovation but the majority of the congregation thought that kind of music in a church would be sinful to the extreme. Emmeline stayed close enough to hear every word.
    At home Lucy’s married sister, Dink, sympathetically inveigled Emmeline into the kitchen where she was dishing up dinner. Lucy and John sat in the parlor with the crayon enlargements on easels and the gilded moustache-cups and saucers on wire props and the religious mottoes on the wall.
    John cleared his throat to speak, but Emmeline popped in at that moment and took her seat beside the center table. Johnwas on one side of the room behind her and Lucy was on the other side facing her.
    â€œAh been keepin’ comp’ny wid you uh long time, ain’t Ah, Lucy?”
    â€œYeah, mighty nigh uh year now.”
    â€œAnd you ain’t never had manners ’nough tuh ast me fuh her comp’ny reg’lar,” Emmeline snapped.
    Conversation died. On the lower shelf of the center table John spied Lucy’s double slate with the slate-pencil suspended from it by a string.
    â€œDis de same slate you use in school, ain’t it, Lucy?”
    â€œUnhunh.”
    John opened the slate and wrote a few words in it as softly as possible. Emmeline seemed neither to see nor hear the scratching of the pencil, but when John leaned forward and tried to hand the slate past Emmeline to Lucy, Emmeline’s hand flew out like a cat’s paw and grabbed the slate. She looked on both sides and saw no writing, then she opened it and looked hard at the message, “I got something to tell you. Less go for a walk.” Emmeline couldn’t read a word and she was afraid that no one would read it correctly for her, but one thing she was sure of, she could erase as well as the world’s greatest professor. She spoiled out the words with a corner of her apron, and put the slate back under the table. Not a word was passed.
    â€œMama!” from the kitchen.
    â€œWhut you want, Dink?”
    â€œCome turn dis sweet bread out on uh plate. Ahm skeered Ah’ll make it fall uh tear it, tryin’ tuh git it out de pan.”
    Emmeline went grumbling to the rear.
    â€œLess set on de piazza,” John suggested, “Maybe us kin git uh word in edgeways ’fo’ she git back.”
    â€œAw right.”
    They went out on the porch and sat slyly side by side—Lucy in the old red rocker, and John on a cow-hided straight chair.
    â€œLucy, Ah loves yuh.”
    Emmeline burst out of the parlor.
    â€œLucy! Whut you doin’ settin’ on top uh dat boy?”
    â€œAh ain’t settin’ on top of ’im. Uh milk cow could git between us.”
    â€œDon’t you back talk me. When Ah speak you move. You hear me Lucy?”
    â€œYessum.”
    â€œHow come you ain’t movin’? Mah orders is five feet apart. Dink know befo’ she married Ah never ’lowed her tuh set closer dan five feet and you know it and when Ah don’t ’low tuh one, Ah ain’t gwine ’low tuh de other. Heifer! Move dat chear ’way from dat boy!”
    Silence.
    â€œLucy!”
    â€œYessum.”
    â€œIs you deef?”
    â€œNo’m.”
    Richard came in from the barn at that moment and called his wife.
    â€œAw,