To this house came Josie on Christmas morning. Aunt Mandy was sweeping the bottom step as the old hack lumbered up the street and came to a halt in the slush-filled gutter. The old woman beat her broom on the back of one of the peaceful black lions and called out to the grinning hackman:
“Hi yer, Brer Si?”
“Hi yer se’f, Sis Mandy? Brer Peter done sent you an’ Miss Lucy a Chris’mus gif’—a new boa’der. I hope you air got room.”
“Sho we air got room—an’ if’n we ain’t we kin make room,” responded the old woman.
Aunt Mandy was dressed in a purple calico dress, with a voluminous skirt that suggested the days of hoops. Her head was wrapped in a red bandanna handkerchief. Her kind old face was wreathed in smiles as she bobbed a curtsey to Josie, who scrambled from the depths of the hack.
“Come right in, miss! Fust breakfas’ air under way an’ I’ll hump it up some. I knows how hongryfyin’ sleepin’ cyars is. Whe’fo’ you didn’t brung Peter up from the depot alongst with yo’ fare, Brer Si?”
“He gotter bresh up some fust, but he’ll be long in three shakes.”
“Well, me’n Miss Lucy air ’bleeged ter you fer a boa’der an’ I wouldn’t be ’stonished if a leetle later on Miss Lucy would be a passin’ out some Chris’mus. You mought kinder stop in on us if you air a comin’ this a-way.”
“I’ll be! I’ll be!” bowed the hackman. Even the bony horses seemed cheered up at the prospect of Miss Lucy’s passing out “some Christmas,” and they pranced up the street with quite an air of gaiety.