How many
times Anne had travelled this road on visits to the numerous cousins!
Firefly turned at last from the highway to a plantation road and stopped
at a log cabin. It was a neat, whitewashed little house, with rows of
zinnias and marigolds on each side of a walk leading from the road. Over
the door, hung a madeira vine covered with little spikes of fragrant
white blossoms. Charity, in a blue-and-white checked cotton gown, with a
bandanna around her head, was working in her garden beside the house.
"Don't speak to her, Cousin Dorcas," whispered Anne. "Let me s'prise
her." She jumped lightly out of the buggy and ran to Aunt Charity.
"Boo!" she said.
Charity dropped her hoe with a scream. "Lawd 'a' mercy!" she exclaimed,
backing toward the cabin. "My child's ghost in de broad daylight!"
Anne laughed till tears ran down her cheeks. "There!" she said, pinching
Charity's fat arm. "Does that feel like a ghost, Aunt Charity?"
Charity seized Anne in her arms and jumped up and down, exclaiming, "My
child in de flesh and blood! my child in de flesh and blood!" At last
she recovered herself enough to "mind her manners" and help Miss Dorcas
out of the buggy.
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