cious of a pride that was fierce and strong, even
if new. She felt suddenly strange, foreign, like an intruder.

Their eyes met, and this time it was Mary Louise's that fell. She felt
embarrassed at the question that arose in her. Of course Zeke was the
father. Such a question to the emancipated Zenie would be paternally
insulting. She countered skillfully:

"What's--his name?"

Zenie shifted the bundle in her arms and then reached over with her
toe and thoughtfully pushed the stove door.

"Name Nausea," she replied softly, still regarding the door which
refused to shut entirely.

"Name's what?"

Zenie raised her eyes and smiled. It was a sudden unmasking of a
battery in a peaceful landscape. "Nausea Zekiel Thompson," Zenie
continued, gazing down into the bundle with the simplicity of a great
emotion.

For a moment silence descended upon the room. Mary Louise could not
trust herself in the customary amenities. She stepped over to Zenie
and the younger Thompson and peered into the bundle, conscious as she
did so of a slowly opening door beyond them. A tiny weazened face and
two beady blinking eyes were all she saw. Zenie was making a curious
clucking noise.

"Yas'm," Zenie went on, encouraged into an unwonted garrulity, "Mist'
Joe done give 'im that name. Hit's from de Bible, ain't it?"

"Mister Joe?"

"Yas'm. Mist' Joe Hoopah." There was a cheery ring to Zenie's voice
that had been wont to drag so dispiritedly. "He say hit come so
unexpeckedly an' all you kin do is make the bes' of it." Her face was
suddenly wreathed in an expansive smile. "Mist' Joe done hoorahin'
us--Zeke an' me. Zeke don' min'. Nossuh. He say de baby look lak him."
She held the bundle up and looked at it in rapt contemplation.

Mary Louise's lips shut in a tight line. She turned away from the pair
in distaste. But just then a light step sounded and her feeling was
diverted. Zenie did not hear the advent of another character upon the
scene so absorbed was she in holding the centre of the stage. "Think
hit's a pritty name, don' you?"

Receiving no answer she raised her eyes and beheld Miss Susie, whose
critical gaze enveloped her sternly. Zenie dropped her eyes again.

"So you've finally decided to show up again, Zenie?" Miss Susie
clipped her words off short to everyone. She was a wisp of a woman
with little hands as dry and yellow as parchment. Her voice had a
quavering falsetto break in it and her laugh, when there was occasion,
wa