CHAPTER VIII
CLUES FROM AUNT MANDY
Aunt Mandy ushered Josie into a cheerful, shabby parlor. The furniture was a mixture of fine old mahogany, cheap varnished oak, and odds and ends of wicker and mission. There were some beautiful dignified portraits, hanging cheek by jowl with simpering chromos of girls kissing roses and stern faced persons, represented by crayon drawings of enlarged photographs in plush frames. There was a soft coal fire in the broad, deep grate and the flames leapt merrily up the sooty flue. Josie was chilled to the bone and was grateful for the warmth and cheer of the room.
“I low as how you’d like a cup er cawfee this very minute,” suggested Aunt Mandy. “Breakfas’ ain’t quite ready but de cawfee air givin’ out a odium dat means it air jes’ about done. Suppos’n’ you come on back to de kitchen an’ let Mandy fix you up a tray, if you ain’t too proud ter eat in de kitchen?”
“I’m proud to be allowed to eat in the kitchen,” smiled Josie. “I don’t often get in a real kitchen. I have nothing but a kitchenette.”
“Humph! I don’ know what dat am but it sounds ter me like it’s a kitchen whar folks done et ’stid of a dinin’ room.”
Josie laughed merrily and explained, to Mandy’s delight, that it was a little kitchen not much bigger than a china closet.
“An’ what air you a-doin’ here in Lou’ville on Chris’mus mornin,’ chil’? Ain’t you got no folks?”
“No real folks—that is none that belong to me,” said Josie sadly. She remembered the old days with her father and could not keep back a tiny tear that rolled from the corner of her eye before she could stop it.
“Now, now, honey! You kin jes’ be to home here wiv Miss Lucy an’ me. Lots er folks have spent Chris’mus wiv us an’ ’tain’t sech a bad place ter be on dat day, I kin tell yer. Now you drink yo’ cawfee. Bless Bob, if de sun hain’t done bust through the fawg! It’s gonter be a bright day arfter all.”
The old woman beamed on her guest, who was seated in the big kitchen sipping coffee from a huge blue willow-ware cup, minus a handle. The coffee was delicious and there was a pleasing aroma stealing from the oven that told of hot rolls almost done.