Jimson was a prophet. That very night it began to rain.
CHAPTER XV—THE RIDE TO HOLLOWAYS
Being kept indoors by the rain was not altogether a privation. At least, the three girls staying at the Big House did not find it such.
They became acquainted with Mammy Dilsey during that first day of rain. At least, the girls from the North did; Nettie had been a pet of the old woman for years.
Dilsey was full of old-time stories—just such stories as were calculated to enthrall girls of the age of Ruth Fielding and her friends. For even Ruth, with all her good sense and soberness, loved to hear of pretty ladies, in pretty frocks, and with beautifully dressed gentlemen dancing attendance upon them, such as in the old times often filled Merredith House.
Mammy Dilsey insisted she could remember when men really dressed in satin and lace, and wore wonderfully fluted shirt-bosoms, and fine linen and broadcloth. The pre-Civil War ladies, of course, with their crinolines, and tiny bonnets, and enormous shade-hats must have looked really beautiful. The girls listened to the tales of the parties at the Big House almost breathlessly.
“An’ dat time de Gov’nor come—de two Gov’nors come,” sighed Mammy Dilsey. “De Gov’nor ob No’th Ca’lina an’ de Gov’nor ob So’th Ca’lina——”
“I know what they said to each other—those two governors,” interrupted Helen, her eyes dancing. “My father told me.”
“I dunno wot dey said,” said Mammy Dilsey, who did not know the old joke. “But I sho’ knows how dey looked. Dey was bof such big, upstandin’ sort o’ men. My-oh-my! Ah tells yo’, chillen, dey was a big breed o’ men in dese pahts in dem days—sho’ was.
“Ma Miss Rachel, she been a li’le tinty gal in dem days. Ah car’s her in ma arms ‘mos’ de time. Her maw was weakly-like. An’ I could walk up an’ down de end o’ dis big verandah wid dat mite ob a baby, an’ see all dat went on.