Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered

143/260Tea Cake fell in beside her and mounted the porch this time. So sheoffered him a seat and they made a lot of laughter out of nothing. Neareleven o’clock she remembered a piece of pound cake she had putaway. Tea Cake went out to the lemon tree at the corner of the kitchenand picked some lemons and squeezed them for her. So they had lemonadetoo.“Moon’s too pretty fuh anybody tuh be sleepin’ it away,” Tea Cakesaid after they had washed up the plates and glasses. “Less us gofishin’.”“Fishin’? Dis time uh night?”“Unhhunh, fishin’. Ah know where de bream is beddin’. Seen ’emwhen Ah come round de lake dis evenin’. Where’s yo’ fishin’ poles?Less go set on de lake.”It was so crazy digging worms by lamp light and setting out forLake Sabelia after midnight that she felt like a child breaking rules.That’s what made Janie like it. They caught two or three and got homejust before day. Then she had to smuggle Tea Cake out by the backgate and that made it seem like some great secret she was keepingfrom the town.“Mis’ Janie,” Hezekiah began sullenly next day, “you oughtn’t ’lowdat Tea Cake tuh be walkin’ tuh de house wid yuh. Ah’ll go wid yuhmahself after dis, if you’se skeered.”“What’s de matter wid Tea Cake, ’Kiah? Is he uh thief uhsomethin’?”“Ah ain’t never heard nobody say he stole nothin’.”“Is he bad ’bout totin’ pistols and knives tuh hurt people wid?”