Would a got milk like I need.
Would a had a nice baby.
This here baby ain’t gonna be no good.
I ought a had milk.” She reached in her apron pocket and put something into her mouth.
Ma said,
“I seen you nibblin’ on somepin.
What you eatin’?”
“Nothin’.”
“Come on, what you nibblin’ on?”
“Jus’ a piece a slack lime.
Foun’ a big hunk.”
“Why, tha’s jus’ like eatin’ dirt.”
“I kinda feel like I wan’ it.”
Ma was silent.
She spread her knees and tightened her skirt.
“I know,” she said at last. “I et coal oncet when I was in a fambly way.
Et a big piece a coal.
Granma says I shouldn’.
Don’ you say that about the baby.
You got no right even to think it.”
“Got no husban’!
Got no milk!”
Ma said,
“If you was a well girl, I’d take a whang at you.
Right in the face.” She got up and went inside the tent.
She came out and stood in front of Rose of Sharon, and she held out her hand. “Look!” The small gold earrings were in her hand. “These is for you.”
The girl’s eyes brightened for a moment, and then she looked aside.
“I ain’t pierced.”
“Well, I’m a-gonna pierce ya.” Ma hurried back into the tent.
She came back with a cardboard box.
Hurriedly she threaded a needle, doubled the thread and tied a series of knots in it.
She threaded a second needle and knotted the thread. In the box she found a piece of cork.
“It’ll hurt.
It’ll hurt.”
Ma stepped to her, put the cork in back of the ear lobe and pushed the needle through the ear, into the cork.
The girl twitched.
“It sticks.
It’ll hurt.”
“No more’n that.”
“Yes, it will.”
“Well, then.
Le’s see the other ear first.” She placed the cork and pierced the other ear.
“It’ll hurt.”
“Hush!” said Ma. “It’s all done.”
Rose of Sharon looked at her in wonder.
Ma clipped the needles off and pulled one knot of each thread through the lobes.
“Now,” she said. “Ever’ day we’ll pull one knot, and in a couple weeks it’ll be all well an’ you can wear ’em.
Here—they’re your’n now.
You can keep ’em.”
Rose of Sharon touched her ears tenderly and looked at the tiny spots of blood on her fingers.