Quit crying, now."
"Dont lose your temper," she says. "She's just a child, remember."
"No," I says. "I wont."
I went out, closing the door.
"Jason," she says.
I didn't answer.
I went down the hall. "Jason," she says beyond the door.
I went on down stairs.
There wasn't anybody in the diningroom, then I heard her in the kitchen.
She was trying to make Dilsey let her have another cup of coffee.
I went in.
"I reckon that's your school costume, is it?" I says. "Or maybe today's a holiday?"
"Just a half a cup, Dilsey," she says. "Please."
"No, suh," Dilsey says. "I aint gwine do it.
You aint got no business wid mo'n one cup, a seventeen year old gal, let lone whut Miss Cahline say.
You go on and git dressed for school, so you kin ride to town wid Jason.
You fixin to be late again."
"No she's not," I says. "We're going to fix that right now."
She looked at me, the cup in her hand.
She brushed her hair back from her face, her kimono slipping off her shoulder.
"You put that cup down and come in here a minute," I says.
"What for?" she says.
"Come on," I says. "Put that cup in the sink and come in here."
"What you up to now, Jason?" Dilsey says.
"You may think you can run over me like you do your grandmother and everybody else," I says. "But you'll find out different.
I'll give you ten seconds to put that cup down like I told you."
She quit looking at me. She looked at Dilsey.
"What time is it, Dilsey?" she says. "When it's ten seconds, you whistle.
Just a half a cup. Dilsey, pl--"
I grabbed her by the arm.
She dropped the cup.
It broke on the floor and she jerked back, looking at me, but I held her arm.
Dilsey got up from her chair.
"You, Jason," she says.
"You turn me loose," Quentin says. "I'll slap you."
"You will, will you?" I says. "You will will you?" She slapped at me.
I caught that hand too and held her like a wildcat. "You will, will you?" I says. "You think you will?"
"You, Jason!" Dilsey says.
I dragged her into the diningroom.
Her kimono came unfastened, flapping about her, dam near naked.
Dilsey came hobbling along.
I turned and kicked the door shut in her face.
"You keep out of here," I says.
Quentin was leaning against the table, fastening her kimono.
I looked at her.
"Now," I says. "I want to know what you mean, playing out of school and telling your grandmother lies and forging her name on your report and worrying her sick.
What do you mean by it?"
She didn't say anything.
She was fastening her kimono up under her chin, pulling it tight around her, looking at me.
She hadn't got around to painting herself yet and her face looked like she had polished it with a gun rag.