“...  She was a cu’rus kind o’ child, Louisa was.  She sort o’ ’spicioned things wasn’t right, but you think that child ever let a squeal out o’ her?  Not her!  Lemme tell you-all somethin’, jest to show what kind o’ a heart that child had, suhs.”

With a loving and mothering motion she moved the bright curl about and about her hard finger.  She spoke half intimately, half garrulously; and from the curl she would lift her faded eyes to the Butterfly Man’s.

“‘T was a Sarrerday night, an’ I was a-walkin’ up an’ down, account o’ me bein’ awful low in the mind.

“‘Ma,’ says Louisa, ’I’m reel hungry to-night.  You reckon I could have a piece o’ bread with butter on it?  I wisht I could taste some bread with butter on it,’ says she.

“‘Darlin’,’ says I, turrible sad, ‘Po’ ma c’n give yo’ the naked bread an’ thanks to God I got even that to give,’ I says.  ’But they ain’t a scrap o’ butter in this house, an’ no knowin’ how to git any.  Oh, darlin’, ma’s so sorry!’

“She looks up with that quick smile o’ her’n.  Yes, suh, Mr. Flint, she ups and smiles.  ‘You don’t belong to be sorry any, ma,’ says she, comfortin’.  ‘Don’t you mind none at all.  Why, ma, darlin’, I just love naked bread without no butter on it!’ says she.  My God, Mr. Flint, I bust out a-cryin’ in her face.  Seemed like I natchelly couldn’t stand no mo’!” And smiling vaguely with her poor old down-curved mouth, she went on fingering the curl.

“Will you-all look a’ that!” she murmured, with pride.  “Even her hair’s lovin’, an’ sort o’ holds on like it wants you should touch it.  My Lord o’ glory, I’m glad her pa ain’t livin’ to see this day!  He had his share o’ misery, po’ man, him dyin’ o’ lung-fever an’ all....

“Six head o’ young ones we’d had, me an’ him.  An’ they’d all dropped off.  Come spring, an’ one’d be gone.  I kep’ a-comfortin’ that man best I could they was better off, angels not bein’ pindlin’ an’ hungry an’ barefoot, an’ thanks be, they ain’t no mills in heaven.  But their pa he couldn’t see it thataway nohow.  He was turrible sot on them children, like us pore folks gen’rally is.  They was reel fine-lookin’ at first.

“When all the rest of ’em had went, her pa he sort o’ sot his heart on Louisa here.  ‘For we ain’t got nothin’ else, ma,’ says he.  ‘An’ please the good Lord, we’re a-goin’ to give this one book-learnin’ an’ sich, an’ so be she’ll miss them mills,’ he says.  ’Ma, less us aim to make a lady o’ our Louisa.  Not that the Lord ain’t done it a’ready,’ says her pa, ‘but we got to he’p Him keep on an’ finish the job thorough.’  An’ here’s him an’ her both gone, an’ me without a God’s soul belongin’ to me this day!  My God, Mr. Flint, ain’t it something turrible the things happens to us pore folks?”

The Butterfly Man looked from her to Westmoreland and me:  doctor of bodies, doctor of souls, naturalist, what had we to say to this woman stripped of all?  But she, with the greater wisdom of the poor, spoke for herself and for us.  A sort of veiled light crept into her sodden face.