but with the growth of this harmony with natural things, judith developed a constantly growing tendency to clash with the life of the school and the home kitchen and the kitchens of the various relatives with whom the pippingers visited. she was considered by her aunts and other female relatives "a wild, bad little limb," and her contempt for the decent and domestic scandalized them more and more as she grew older. lena moss could not for her life understand how it was that judith had learned to read and write and figure better than almost any other child in the school; for she was anything but studious. in fact she never seemed to pay the slightest attention to her studies. she flatly refused even to try to learn lena's long and carefully prepared list of all the counties and county towns in kentucky; and the battles of the revolutionary and civil wars, with their accompanying dates, found no lodgment in her mind. instead of applying herself to these, she munched apples, chewed slippery elm and sassafras, stared idly out of the window, bedeviled the child who sat in front of her, cut folded bits of paper into intricate designs or drew pictures on her slate, the desk, the seat, the floor, the back of the pinafore of the girl in front, any available space within her reach.
these pictures were the curse of lena's existence. they were to be found everywhere: on the desks, the walls, the floor, the blackboard, the window casings. outside they decorated the whitewashed wall of the school building, the tops of big flat stones, the fences, the trunks of trees where the bark had been stripped away, every place where a piece of chalk or a bit of black crayon could function.
the pictures, invariably of human beings or animals, were usually comic, satirical or derisive. that they showed great vigor and clarity of vision would have meant nothing to lena
[pg 26]
even if she had known it. they were, in her phraseology, "not nice!" they were frequently disrespectful. the morning after the visit of the county superintendent, a large picture in white chalk was found on the blackboard wickedly caricaturing the features of that august personage. the picture was done in profile and exaggerated irreverently the large, bulbous nose, the receding forehead, and the many chins reaching around to a fleshy, pendulous ear. poor lena was hard put to it to find a way to control this unruly member of her school. having much less force of character than her pupil, the advantage of years and vested authority availed her little.
when asked why she had done thus and so, judith's almost invariable reply was: "cuz i had to."
"judy, why hain't you a better gal at school?" bill asked one morning, trying to look sternly at his favorite daughter across the mush and milk. "lizzie may says the teacher has a heap o' grief with you. why don't you mind the teacher, judy?"
"i do mind her, dad—all i can," judith returned without looking up. she had the syrup pitcher in her hand and was absorbed in pouring sorghum onto her plate in a very thin stream. presently she set the pitcher down and handed the plate across the table to her father.
"there, dad, ain't that a good mule? i drawed 'im with the blackstrap. lizzie may couldn't draw a mule like that."
"ner i don't want to neither," put in lizzie may disdainfully. "you otta see, dad, sech pitchers as she draws all raound the school, an' makes fun of everybody: the teacher an' the sup'rintendent an' her own relations an' all. she'd otta think shame to herse'f!"
bill was proud of his girl's ability to draw, but felt it his duty to discourage her choice of subjects, seeing that the same seemed to be so universally condemned.
"what makes you draw them kind o' pitchers, judy?" he asked.
"cuz i want to," replied judith a little sullenly. "i see things; an' when i see 'em i want to draw 'em."
[pg 27]
"o law, she don't see no sech things, dad! haow kin she? nobody else sees 'em!" exclaimed lizzie may, outraged. "why, the idea of her sayin' she sees sech things!"
"aw, shet up, liz, an' tend yer own business!" snapped judith, flushing red with sudden anger. "jest cuz you don't see nuthin don't mean nobody else does."
she pushed her chair back from the table and began to gather together her school books, slamming them on top of each other with angry energy. bill said no more; he was not a disciplinarian.
"it's your turn to wash the dishes, judy," reminded luella, who was busy helping her mother put up the midday lunch. "lizzie may washed 'em yestiddy an' i did 'en day before."
"why don't craw have to take his turn washin' dishes?" inquired judith, who was still nettled from the recent argument.
"craw's a boy. boys don't wash dishes," adjudged luella in a tone of dead finality.
"i don't see why he hadn't otta," continued judith, as she slapped the plates together. "far's i c'n see he ain't no good fer nuthin else."
the subject of this conversation, engaged in his favorite occupation of doing nothing in a rocking chair by the stove, looked at his sisters with a mild, impartial eye and said nothing. he was safe and aloof in his masculinity.
"land, hain't that a nice pattern this platter is burned into, elly!" exclaimed judith, examining a small platter which she had just picked up from the table. "look here at all the nice squares an' di'monds—an' all jes as even!"
"i don't see nothing nice about it," said luella with a half glance at the platter. "it's burned so's it won't never come white agin. it was you done that, judy, puttin' it in the oven with them slices o' hog meat on it an' fergittin it till the grease was all burnt into smoke. an' sech a stink as it made when mammy opened the oven door! a person could hardly git their breath."
"well, i like it anyway," said judith cheerfully. "it's a good thing somebody likes these old, cracked-over plates, cuz
[pg 28]
most all of 'em is cracked over. i have lots o' fun lookin' at 'em an' seein' all the diff'rent patterns they git burnt into."
"yes, an' that's why it takes you so long to wash up the dishes. if you don't hurry you're a-goin' to be tardy for school. the rest of us is a-fixin' to start naow, an' you'll have to run to ketch up."
"i ain't a-goin' to ketch up if i don't want to," returned judith. "an' if i'm tardy, you hain't got no call to be a-frettin' yo'se'f."
