So I jest says to her:
"Hullo!"
Martha, she had been fussing around some flower bushes with a pair of shears and gloves on. She looks up when I says that, and she sizes us all up standing by the gate, and her eyes pops open, and so does her mouth, and she is so surprised to see me she drops her shears.
And she looks scared, too.
"Is Miss Buckner at home?" asts Colonel Tom, lifting his hat very polite.
"Miss B-B-Buckner?" Martha stutters, very scared-like, and not taking her eyes off of me to answer him.
"Miss Hampton, Martha," I says.
"Y-y-y-es, s-sh-she is," says Martha. I wondered what was the matter with her.
It is always my luck to get left all alone with my troubles. The doctor and the colonel, they walked right past us when she said yes, and up toward the house, and left her and me standing there. I could of went along and butted in, mebby. But I says to myself I will have the derned thing out here and now, and know the worst. And I was so interested in my trouble and Martha that I didn't even notice if Miss Lucy met 'em at the door, and if so, how she acted. When I next looked up they was all in the house.
"Martha—" I begins. But she breaks in.