"We've had some jolly good times, that's a fact," answered Keith with a sigh, to think that they were so nearly over. Then beating time with his foot to the music of Malcolm's banjo, he began to sing with the others:
"'Oh, weep no more, my lady, weep no more to-day.
We will sing one song for my old Kentucky home,
For my old Kentucky home far away.'"
Something in the mournful melody, coupled with the thought that this was the end of the summer, and the last of such visits to beautiful old Locust for many a long day, touched each face with a little shade of sadness. For several minutes after the last note of the song died away no one spoke. The only sounds were the bird-calls, and the voices of the cook's grandchildren, who were playing on the other side of the house.
As in many old Southern mansions, the kitchen at Locust was a room some distance back from the house. In the path that led from one to the other, three little darkies were romping and tumbling over each other like three black kittens.
Fat old Aunt Cindy, waddling into the pantry to flour-bin or sugar-barrel, glanced at them occasionally through the open window to see that they were in no mischief, and then went calmly on with her baking. She knew that they were not like white children who need a nurse to watch every step. They had taken care of themselves and each other from the time that they had learned to crawl.
In Aunt Cindy's slow journeys around the kitchen, she stopped from time to time to open the oven door and peep in. Finally she flung it wide open, and, with a satisfied grunt, took out a big square pan. A warm delicious odour filled the kitchen, and floated out around the house to the group on the porch.
"I smell gingerbread!" exclaimed Rob, starting up and sniffing the air excitedly with his short freckled nose.
"Me too!" exclaimed Keith. "It's the best thing I ever smelled in my life. Doesn't it make you hungry?"
"Fairly starved!" answered Malcolm.