"How's the busy bee this evening?"
For answer Mrs. Jett met him with the crescendo yell of a gale sweeping
around a chimney.
"Ya-a-ah! Keep out--you! Fish! Fish!" she cried, springing toward him;
and in the struggle that ensued the tubing wrenched off the gas lamp and
plunged them into darkness. "Fish! I'll fix you! Ya-a-ah!"
"Emmy! For God's sake, it's Henry! Em!"
"Ya-a-ah! I'll fix you! Fish! Fish!"
* * * * *
Two days later Ann Elizabeth was born, beautiful, but premature by two
weeks.
Emma Jett died holding her tight against her newly rich breasts, for a
few of the most precious and most fleeting moments of her life.
All her absurd fears washed away, her free hand could lie without spasm
in Henry's, and it was as if she found in her last words a secret
euphony that delighted her.
"Ann-Elizabeth. Sweet-beautiful. Ann-Elizabeth. Sweet-beautiful."
Later in his bewildered and almost ludicrous widowerhood tears would
sometimes galumph down on his daughter's face as Henry rocked her of
evenings and Sunday mornings.
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