“Who she? Why, she de cook.”
“All right, tell her I'm coming,” and he dressed hurriedly and ran down into the hall where he found Champe Lightfoot, the Major's great-nephew, who lived at Chericoke.
“Hello!” called Champe at once, plunging his hands into his pockets and presenting an expression of eager interest. “When did you get here?”
“Last night,” Dan replied, and they stood staring at each other with two pairs of the Lightfoot gray eyes.
“How'd you come?”
“I walked some and I came part the way on a steamboat. Did you ever see a steamboat?”
“Oh, shucks! A steamboat ain't anything. I've seen George Washington's sword. Do you like to fish?”
“I never fished. I lived in a city.”
Zeke came in with a can of worms, and Champe gave them the greater share of his attention. “I tell you what, you'd better learn,” he said at last, returning the can to Zeke and taking up his fishing-rod. “There're a lot of perch down yonder in the river,” and he strode out, followed by the small negro.
Dan looked after him a moment, and then went into the dining room, where his grandmother was sitting at the head of her table, washing her pink teaset in a basin of soapsuds. She wore her stiff, black silk this morning with its dainty undersleeves of muslin, and her gray curls fell beneath her cap of delicate yellowed lace. “Come and kiss me, child,” she said as he entered. “Did you sleep well?”