but nobody paid any attention

She looked at him keenly and angrily, raising her hands slowly from the edge of the auto, and brought them down so hard that Rufus jumped. Then she nodded, several times, and still she did not say anything. At last she spoke, coldly, “Well, they might as well just put me out to grass,” she said. “Lay me down and give me both barls threw the head.” “Why, Aunt Sadie,” Mary said gently, but nobody paid any attention. After a moment the old woman went on solemnly, staring hard into Jay’s eyes: “I knowed that like I know my own name and it plumb slipped my mind.” “Oh what a shame,” Mary said sympathetically. “Hit ain’t shame I feel,” the old woman said, “hit’s sick in the stummick.” “Oh I didn’t m ...” “Right hyer!” and she slapped her hand hard against her stomach and laid her hand back on the edge of the auto. “If I git like that too,” she said to Jay, “then who’s agonna look out fer her?” “Aw, tain’t so bad, Aunt Sadie,” Jay said. “Everybody slips up nown then. Do it myself an I ain’t half yer age. And you just ought see Mary.” “Gracious, yes,” Mary said. “I’m just a perfect scatterbrain.” The old woman looked briefly at Mary and then looked back at Jay. “Hit ain’t the only time,” she said, “not by a long chalk. Twarn’t three days ago I ...” she stopped. “Takin on about yer troubles ain’t never holp nobody,” she said. “You just set hyer a minute.” She turned and walked over to the older woman and leaned deep over against her ear and said, quite loudly, but not quite shouting, “Granmaw, ye got company.” And they watched the old woman’s pale eyes, which had been on them all this time in the light shadow of the sunbonnet, not changing, rarely ever blinking, to see whether they would change now, and they did not change at all, she didn’t even move her head or her mouth. “Ye hear me, Granmaw?” The old woman opened and shut her sunken mouth, but not as if she were saying anything. “Hit’s Jay and his wife and younguns, come up from Knoxvul to see you,” she called, and they saw the hands crawl in her lap and the face turned towards the younger woman and they could hear a thin, dry crackling, no words. “She can’t talk any more,” Jay said, almost in a whisper. “Oh no,” Mary said.