Butler Ellis Parker
The Confessions of a Daddy

III. THE DAY OF THE SPANK

NOW, you just take a good look this here right fist of mine.

Looks like a ham, don’t it? And see all them callouses on the palm. Ain’t that a tool fit to break rock with? And what’d you say if I told you I used that once to hit that little, tender kid of mine? Actually hit her! What you say to that? I won’t forgit that night soon, I tell you!

Just figger to yourself that it’s sundown, and the blinds pulled down in the room where Deedee’s cot was standin’ like a little iron-barred cage. We got into the way of callin’ the kid Deedee, that bein’ what she called herself. There was all the signs that Deedee was goin’ to sleep, and the plainest sign was Deedee herself, standin’ up in her crib, wide awake, holdin’ on to the foot of the crib, trampin’ the sheets into a tangle of white underbrush, as you might say, and no more asleep than you are. The way Deedee went to sleep was like the death of an alligator – it was a long and strenuous affair.

Marthy stood lookin’ at Deedee with reproaches in her eyes. We had a sort of tradition in the family that Deedee had to go to sleep quick and quiet, without any nonsense. Every night, when Marthy put the little white rascal in the crib, she had hopes that the tradition would come true, and every night it didn’t. The go-to-sleep hour was the time Deedee seemed to pick out to have an hour of especial lively fun, and for weeks she had been breakin’ the laws, and walkin’ all over the rules with her pink feet. She did not see, comin’ up over the horizon, and gittin’ nearer every day, the stern and horrid Spank!

We had got together in a sort of family conclave and decided that Deedee was about old enough to be punished by layin’ on of hands. We decided it one time when Deedee was out of the room, and we had been right stern about it. We could be stern about Deedee when she wasn’t in sight. When she come smilin’ and singin’ along we generally had to quit bein’ stern, and kiss her.

Deedee was twenty-two months old, and she was ninety-eight per cent, pure sweetness. Some of the women in our end of town said her short, curly hair was tow-colored, but it wasn’t so – they was just envious of us. And one and all said her eyes was like round little bits of blue sky. It was clear enough that she had inherited her sweetness from Marthy; and some said it was equal clear that the two per cent, of unadulterated stubbornness come from me. I said so myself, but I didn’t believe it.

Deedee was gittin’ to be a regular person. She could tell what she wanted, and once in a while we could understand what it was. It was full time, everybody said, that her education had ought to begin. If she was goin’ to grow up into a fine, sincere woman like Marthy, she must have the right kind of start. Just the night before the day of the Spank, Marthy had begun to teach her her religious education. Standin’ up at Marthy’s knee – for Deedee would not kneel to God or man – she had repeated: —

 
“Nowee-laimee-downee-seep,
Padee-O-so-tee.”
 

Anybody had ought to know that was: —

 
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
 

It was a fine success for a first start, only she didn’t do what she said she was goin’ to do and “lay me down to sleep.” Instead of that she stood up in her crib for about an hour, callin’ for “Mamie,” the meanin’ of which was that she wanted to be rocked and have Marthy sing “Mary had a little lamb,” to her.

The day of the Spank had a bad openin’. When Deedee woke up, along about five o’clock a.m., it was rainin’ pitchforks, and that meant a day indoors, and to start off, she stood up in her crib and called for “laim.”

Marthy woke up sort of realizin’ that Deedee was repeatin’ that word slow, but regular, and she sat up and thought. “Laim” was a new word, and the meanin’ of it was unknown, but, whatever it was, Deedee wanted it. She wanted it bad. Nothin’ but “laim” would satisfy her.

Marthy studied that word good and hard. It did not seem to suggest anything to eat or drink, and, as near as Marthy could make out, it didn’t rightly apply to any toy, game, song, person, or anything else. Marthy woke me up, and I sat up with a sigh. Deedee looked at me as if she thought she would git what she wanted now, sure.

“Laim, Deedee?” I asked, and she smiled as sweet as you please.

“Papa, laim!” she says again. “Laim!” I says, thoughtful, lookin’ around the room and up at the ceilin’. I screwed up my forehead and studied, and twisted my neck to look into the next room. “Laim! What’s a ‘laim,’ anyhow?”

“I give it up,” I says, after I’d thought of everything in the world, pretty near. “Mebby her grandpa would know. Mebby it’s something he taught her.”

We lifted Deedee out of her crib, and set her down on the floor, and she pattered down the hall. We could hear her tellin’ him to give her “laim,” and the puzzled way he answered her back.

“Laim, birdy? What is it? Say it again, Deedee. Laim? Grand-daddy don’t know what you want, Deedee.”

Neither did Uncle Ed, who was stayin’ with us about then. Nobody knew what “laim” was but Deedee, and she wanted it the worst way. She come back, and stood by Marthy’s bed, and just begged for it.

It was a hard day for Marthy. It was Monday, and wash-day, so Deedee couldn’t bother Katie in the kitchen, and it was rainin’ too. Deedee just wandered through the house, like she had lost her last friend, and then she would come back to Marthy and ask for “laim.” She wouldn’t have nothing to do with her toys, and she wouldn’t sew with a pin, and she wouldn’t sit at the table and write, and she wouldn’t look at the photygraft book. And the worst of it was that she wouldn’t keep still a minute.

By noon-time Marthy had a headache. By sundown she had “nerves,” and about then she began to look at Deedee with a sort of reproachful look. Deedee had said that unknown word about ten thousand times. Marthy put Deedee to bed in her crib, and I read once how Wellington, at Waterloo, in the big fight they had there, prayed for night or Blücher, and that was about how Marthy longed for the sandman or me to come. I was the one that come, at last. I come in the house wet to the skin, and plumb disgusted; my pants stickin’ to my legs and all over mud, and I chucked my soakin’ hat and my umbrelly into a corner, the way a tired-out man will, and just dropped into a chair, tuckered out. I let out one good, long sigh of thanks that I was at the end of a hard day.

“Hiram!” comes Marthy’s voice; “Come in here, and see if you can do anything with Edith. I have worked with her all day, and I’m played out; I’m utter tired.”

“Oh, plague!” I says. I sat a minute, drummin’ on the arm of my chair, and then I got upon my feet, and walked into the bedroom.

“What’s the matter?” I says, as near cross as I calculate I ever git, and Marthy’s eyes filled up.

“I can’t do anything with her,” she says. “She won’t go to sleep. She has been dreadful all day. I don’t feel like I could stand it another minute.” Marthy threw herself on the bed and covered up her face with her hands. She was cryin’.

I guess I frowned.

Deedee looked up at me as sweet as a little angel.

“Papa, laim,” she says.

“No!” says I, “No laim, Deedee. You lie down and go to sleep like a good girl. Papa’ll fix your pillow nice.”

I pounded up her pillow, and turned it over, and pulled the sheets out straight. Then I took the baby and laid her down gentle. She smiled and cuddled into the pillow.

“Oh, what a nice bed!” I says. “Ain’t it a nice bed, Deedee?”

“Nice bed,” she allowed.

“Will I cover your feet?” I says.

“Feet cov,” she says, eager.

So I spread the sheet up over her feet.

“Shut little eyes,” I says in warning, but as gentle as you please, and she shut up her eyes so tight her eyelids wrinkled.

“Now, good night, Deedee,” I says.

“‘Night, pa – pa!” she coos.

I stole out of the room as quiet as I knowed how, and dropped cautious into my chair. I leaned back and smiled sort of grim. “That shows,” I thinks, “that women ain’t got the right kind of tact to handle a kid, or else they ‘ve got catchin’ nerves. It shows how easy a man can – ”

“Papa, laim!”

Deedee’s clear little voice just cut what I was thinkin’ into two pieces. I was into that bedroom in about two steps. Deedee was standin’ up in her crib.

“Papa, laim?” she says, sort of anxious.

“No!” I says, stern in earnest. “No laim!”

“Papa, laim!” she demands.

“No!” I says, in a way that froze her smile right where it was. She looked up at me doubtful-like, her little pink and white chin puckered up all ready to cry.

“Papa, laim, laim!” she pleaded.

I reached over and forced her right back on to her pillow.