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He says he hain't got no mother, ner no brothers, ner no sisters, ner no nothin' on'y," the boy in the window added, with a very dry and painful swallow, "he says he hain't got nothin' on'y thist the clothes on his back!"
The SPIRIT of its utterance was always clear and pure and crisp and cheery as the twitter of a bird, and yet forever ran an undercadence through it like a low-pleading prayer. Half garrulously, and like a shallow brook might brawl across a shelvy bottom, the rhythmic little changeling thus began: "I'm thist a little crippled boy, an' never goin' to grow An' git a great big man at all!
"Well, he hain't!" said the boy in the window, with unconscious admiration. "Listen! "I heerd him thist tell 'em 'at it wasn't the first time his arm was broke. Now keep still!" and the boy in the window again bent his ear to the broken pane. "He says both his arm's be'n broke," continued the boy in the window "says this-'un 'at's broke now's be'n broke two times 'fore this time."
'cause Aunty told me so. When I was thist a baby onc't I falled out of the bed An' got 'The Curv'ture of the Spine' 'at's what the Doctor said. I never had no Mother nen fer my Pa runned away An' dassn't come back here no more 'cause he was drunk one day An' stobbed a man in thish-ere town, an' couldn't pay his fine! An' nen my Ma she died an' I got 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!"
"And then," she went on, suddenly throwing out an imperative gesture of silence "and then, after I've been in this here house a long, long time, and you all gits so's you like me awful awful awful well, then some day you'll go in that room there and that room there and in the kitchen and out on the porch and down the cellar and out in the smoke-house and the wood-house and the loft and all around oh, ever' place and in here and up the stairs and all them rooms up there and you'll look behind all the doors and in all the cubboards and under all the beds and then you'll look sorry-like, and holler out, kind o' skeert, and you'll say: 'Where is Mary Alice Smith? And then you'll wait and listen and hold yer breath; and then somepin' 'll holler back, away fur off, and say: 'Oh she has gone home! And then ever'thing'll be all still ag'in, and you'll be afraid to holler any more and you dursn't play and you can't laugh, and yer throat'll thist hurt and hurt, like you been a-eatin' too much calamus-root er somepin'!" And as the little gipsy concluded her weird prophecy, with a final flourish of her big pale eyes, we glanced furtively at one another's awestruck faces, with a superstitious dread of a vague indefinite disaster most certainly awaiting us around some shadowy corner of the future.
"I set while Aunty's washin' on my little long-leg stool, An' watch the little boys an' girls a-skippin' by to school; An' I peck on the winder, an' holler out an' say: 'Who wants to fight The Little Man at dares you all to-day? An' nen the boys climbs on the fence, an' little girls peeks through, An' they all says: 'Cause you're so big, you think we're 'feard o' you! An' nen they yell, an' shake their fist at me, like I shake mine They're thist in fun, you know, 'cause I got 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!"
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