Sister Jane Author:Joel Chandler Harris Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV. THE BABY IS PUT TO BED. The situation was so interesting that Mrs. Beshears forgot that she was obliged to go home. As for me, though it was long past ... more »my bedtime, I had no thought of sleep. Sister Jane held the baby with a deftness that showed her hand had not lost its cunning; and the little thing played the same trick with her that it had with me. It reached forth its dimpled hand and gently pinched her neck. "Look at him, Sally! He 's pinching my neck, and he keeps on at it," said sister Jane. "And he's looking right at me! " She put her face against the baby's and rocked back and forth in her chair, looking at the bed of coals on the hearth. The matter of her thoughts I could not even guess, but I knew she was happy, for her face wore a smile that made her look younger by twenty years. The mother of the child was far from comfortable, as I could see. She moved restlessly about in her chair, and I felt rather than saw that the inquisitive eyes of Mrs. Beshears were fixed upon her. With her baby in her arms, she could havehid her face, but now all she could do was to change her position by moving about in her chair. The woman could not know, of course, that there was neither scorn nor condemnation in the eyes of Mrs. Beshears, but only a sort of sympathetic curiosity. Suddenly Mrs. Beshears spoke: — "Child, what is your name?" The question was blunt and sudden, but the woman seemed to be relieved at hearing the sound of a voice. Such composure as she could command she showed now. "Mandy Satterlee," she replied. " Well, I thought so. I used to see you when I went to the mill. Jane, don't you mind me telling you what a good-lookin' gal I saw running wild in the bushes? " But sister Jane evidently failed to hear this appeal to her memory. When she did...« less