Before Anne and Cousin Dorcas went to Washington, it was resolved that they should visit Aunt Charity and Uncle Richard, who lived on a plantation eight miles from 'Lewis Hall.' Mrs. Collins doubted the wisdom of the plan, fearing lest some of the 'sylum folks on the lookout for Anne would be met on the public road. Miss Dorcas, too, was a little uneasy. It was finally decided that Anne should wear one of Lizzie's frocks and her sunbonnet and that if they met any one on the road, Miss Dorcas was to say in a loud voice, "Lizzie!" and Anne was to answer, "Yes, ma'am."
Mr. Collins brought out an old buggy with an old horse called Firefly and helped Miss Dorcas in, explaining carefully, "This ain't no kicker and it ain't no jumper. It's jest plain horse with good horse-sense. If you don't cross yo' lines, you can drive him anywhere."
"I don't know much about driving," confessed Miss Dorcas. "That is, I've been driving a great deal but I've never held the lines.—Whoa! get up, sir!" She gave a gurgly cluck, and flapped the lines up and down on Firefly's back, with her elbows high in air. Firefly started meekly off on a jog trot. Mr. Collins looked after them.
"Dumb brutes is got heap more sense than humans," he exclaimed. "They understands women. Now, Miss Dorcas she's whoain' and geein' and hawin' that horse at the same time, but somehow he knows what she wants him to do and he's gwine to do it."
Firefly followed the winding of the river-road mile after mile, along meadows, fields, and wooded hills, fair in the hazy sunlight. 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.