“Who said anybody was makin' me? I'm paid to do the cookin' and housework in this house, and if I see fit to light in and boss things 'round a bit, it's my own business. Thank the Lord, I got manners enough to attend to it! How much coffee did you come over here to borrow?”
“A cupful will do, 'til the morning. I'll bring it back before breakfast.”
“Put it in this jar when you do. I keep what you pay back separate from ours, so's I can lend it to you again. We ain't used to chicory.”
Norah coughed deprecatingly behind her hand:
“Sure you might make allowance fer a lady as busy as Mrs. Ivy. She can't get her mind down to ordn'ary things.”
“Stop her settin' on club boards, and meetin' on committees, and tryin' to regulate the nation, and she might remember to order the groceries. What's she workin' on now?”
“A begger man. It was readin' Scriptures to him she was when I come away, and him a-settin' there, right pitiful, a-tellin' her how he'd lost all he had in the flood. A religious talkin' man if I ever heard one.”
“Red-headed?” inquired Myrtella, arresting a hot iron in mid air.
“He was.”
“When she gits done with him, you send him over here,” Myrtella brought the iron down on the board with a thud. “If there is one person in the world I'm layin' for it's a red-headed flood-sufferer.”