“Dear Cousin Mayo!� Anne said affectionately. “He’s in this draft, and he may have to go. I don’t want him not to go, but, oh, how we’d miss him! Even when you don’t see him, you feel The Village is a happier place to live in because he’s here. It’s a kind of adventure to meet him on the road.�
“Yes,� said Patsy, “he sets your mind traveling to all sorts of lovely, unexpected places.�
“Don’t his doves make you feel excited?� said Anne. “Oh, I hope some of his birds were with our boys fighting at St.-Mihiel. There must have been! For Cousin Will read in the paper that they had three thousand carrier pigeons.�
Chattering thus, the girls beguiled their way to Lincum’s cabin, on the edge of the old Tolliver place. They took a short cut across a field, and then as they came close to the cabin they heard loud voices and laughter that was more spiteful than merry. They paused at the old rail fence. There was a tangle of blackberry vines and sassafras bushes between them and the house.
“That’ll be a grand day for us.�
They could not see the speaker, but they recognized her voice. She was Betty Bess, a “trifling� negro girl whom Cæsar had been “going with� before he was drafted.
“You’re right, honey,� agreed Louviny. She was bustling about, with no sign of the “misery� that her husband said was keeping her bedrid. She threw aside the broom and sat down in a splint-bottomed chair. “I’ve been like old Bet mule in de treadmill—go, go, go, an’ nuver git nowhar. But now I’m gwine in de promised land. I’m gwine to eat turkey an’ cake. An’ I’m gwine to have six silk dresses an’ a rockin’-cheer. An’ Monday mornin’ I’m gwine to put on my blue silk dress an’ set my cheer on de porch an’ rock—an’ rock—an’ rock!�
She swayed back and forth as she spoke and her voice was shrill and jubilant.
“An’ Chewsday mornin’ I’m gwine to put on my purple silk dress, an’ Wednesday my green silk dress, an’ Thursday I’ll dress in red, an’ Friday in yaller, an’ Sat’day I’ll put on my pink silk dress. An’ Sunday,� she concluded triumphantly, “I’m gwine to lay out all six my silk dresses an’ look ’em up an’ down an’ take my ch’ice.�
Patsy laughed. “Did you ever hear such foolishness?� she asked.