"Everything you holler at me bounces ba yourself. Yah! Yah!"
Miss Amelia would have to stand there helpless, as no one has ever ied a way out of this trap. She could not shout out abuse that would bounce ba herself. He had the best of her, there was nothing she could do.
So things went on like this. What happened betweehree of them during the nights in the rooms upstairs nobody knows. But the café became more and more crowded every night. A able had to be brought in. Even the Hermit, the crazy man named Rainer Smith, who took to the ss years ago, heard something of the situation and came one night to look in at the window and brood over the gathering in the bright café. And the climax each evening was the time when Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy doubled their fists, squared up, and glared at each other. Usually this did not happen after any especial argument, but it seemed to e about mysteriously, by means of some instin the part of both of them. At these times the café would bee so quiet that you could hear the bouquet of paper roses rustling in the draft. And eaight they held this fighting stance a little lohan the night before.
The fight took pla Ground Hog Day, which is the sed of February. The weather was favorable, beiher rainy nor sunny, and with a ral temperature. There were several signs that this was the appointed day, and by ten oclock the news spread all over the ty. Early in the m Miss Amelia went out and cut down her pung bag. Marvin Macy sat on the back step with a tin of hog fat between his knees and carefully greased his arms and his legs. A hawk with a bloody breast flew over the town and circled twice around the property of Miss Amelia. The tables in the café were moved out to the back porch, so that the whole big room was cleared for the fight. There was every sign. Both Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy ate four helpings of half-raw roast for dinner, and then lay down iernoon to store up strength. Marvin Macy rested in the big room upstairs, while Miss Amelia stretched herself out on the ben her office. It lain from her white stiff face what a torment it was for her to be lying still and doing nothing, but she lay there quiet as a corpse with her eyes closed and her hands crossed on her chest.
Cousin Lymon had a restless day, and his little face was drawn and tightened with excitement. He put himself up a lunch, a out to find the ground hog -- within an hour he returhe luen, and said that the ground hog had seen his shadow and there was to be bad weather ahead. Then, as Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy were both resting to gather strength, and he was left to himself, it occurred to him that he might as well paint the front porch. The house had not been painted for years -- in fact, God knows if it had ever been pai all. Cousin Lymon scrambled around, and soon he had painted half the floor of the porch a gay bright green. It was a loblolly job, and he smeared himself all over. Typically enough he did not even finish the floor, but ged over to the walls, painting as high as he could read then standing on a crate to get up a foot higher. When the paint ran out, the right side of the floor was bright green and there was a jagged portion of wall that had been painted. Cousin Lymo it at that.
There was something childish about his satisfa with his painting. And in this respect a curious fact should be mentioned. No one iown, not even Miss Amelia, had any idea how old the hunchback was. Some maintaihat