“Come on, Corinne!” she insisted, “Aunt Decent is taking the first pan out of the oven now. Besides, I’ll coax her to give us some cush to feed Saretta’s baby. She’s sure to be there after clabber.”
Corinne followed, still protesting; but cakes were not so plentiful in the South during this, the second year of the war, that even a girl who preferred to think herself very much of a young lady could afford to scorn them.
“Well, the train’s always late anyway,” she murmured indulgently, as if in excuse for letting her cousin have her own way.
Led by Harriot the two went toward the kitchen by a circuitous route as if they had just happened to pass by. Outside the door was a group of colored mothers and orphan-tenders, awaiting the special rations which were doled out to little babies, and among them was Saretta with Aunt Decent’s newest grandchild in her arms. Harriot, wise in the management of the dusky autocrat, said nothing of patty-pans until she had stuffed the baby. Then she broached the subject tentatively.
“Land sakes, but you is the eatin’est child!” Aunt Decent exclaimed heartily, and that was sufficient assurance that there would be a special portion of the coveted poundcake for the two girls.
“I wish I had gone over to the Polks. Cousin Sally would have walked to the dêpot with me,” Corinne hinted with conscious cunning. Harriot, who had no other cousins in Georgia, was decidedly jealous of Corinne’s many relatives.
“I’ll go to the dêpot with you now,” Harriot said good-naturedly. “Not that I care anything about your old train,” she added, as they started off.
“Its arrival is the only thing that ever happens in this stupid little town,” Corinne snapped.
“Maybe,” Harriot agreed, “but how any one can enjoy seeing a crowd of ladies in black silk Talmas covered with dust, is more than I can understand.”
“There are the wounded officers,” Corinne suggested, a trifle self-consciously.