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Show page 31 "He didn't bring nothing, ma," said Cora. The mother struggled to an elbow and glared at the figure of her husband. The cabin became s i l e n t . John Greene slid awav from the stove, tox^ard his mother's bed. "Get the rabbit! Somebody get the rabbit!" the mother screamed. John Greene dashed back to the stove, grabbed the pot handle with a piece of burlap and brought the steaming pot to the far side of his mother's bed, supposedly out of sight of his father. But Willie had seen i t a l l . He jerked himself around the bed, picked up the pot and took i t back t o the stove. "Pa, t h a t ' s ma's r a b b i t , " John Greene said. Willie bent to the pot. He probed the stextf with a wooden spoon, brought up a choice piece of rabbit, sucked the tender meat from the bone, and tossed the bone to the floor. He probed the pot again. Cora said, "Ma has the heat-fever, pa." "Glory God, save me a piece!" shouted the mother. She flapped the q u i l t covering of the bed and threshed her legs up and down under her cottonsack gown to show her exasperation. Willie, with half-sober deliberateness, moved the pot to the t a b l e , seated himself and began to eat cornmeal dumplings d i r e c t l y from the pot, immune to the others' discomfort. Cora and the mother, t h e i r lean, hungry faces moist with t e a r s , stared in helpless feminine rage. John Greene approached the table where his father sat hunched |
