“An’ whatcher say you air doin’ here in Lou’ville?” asked Aunt Mandy.
Josie hadn’t said, but she had her answer ready and it was a good answer—one she meant to make come true.
“I help run a little shop in my town and I’m hunting up some things for that shop,” she explained. What she told of the nature of the shop delighted and interested Mandy. So Josie went on to explain:
“I want to find someone who plaits rag rugs and also someone who makes hand-made brooms, that round kind with split oak handles.”
“Well, bless Bob, if you ain’t done struck de right pusson to d’rick you!” exclaimed Aunt Mandy. “I got a kinder cousin what lives out back er Peewee Valley an’ she air de greates’ han’ fer cyarpet plaitin’ an’ quilt piecin’ I ever seed, an’ her ol’ man kin make the nices’ brooms an’ split oak cheers in dis hyar lan’ o’ Kaintuck. Dey do say dat he learnt his trade at the pen’tent’ary, but dat don’ matter nuthin a tall. De thing is he air got a trade, what is mo’n mos’. Sis Minerva an’ Brer Abe is dey names.”
“Peewee Valley, you say?” Josie remembered that was where Ursula’s friends, the Trasks, lived.
“Yessum! Jes’ up back er Peewee! You kin take ’lectric cyar right down here at de interbourbon station. Dey am moughty bold a-namin’ a station arfter Bourbon whiskey when it air ’gainst de law ter sell it no mo’, but I reckon so many bottles air been a carried back an’ fo’th on dat road from Lou’ville ter Peewee Valley dat de name done stuck fer good.”
Josie laughed delightedly and asked for further information concerning the cousin who was such a wonder at quilts and rag rugs.
“Well, you git off’n de cyar right at Colonel Trask’s. De driver’ll tell you what dat is. Everybody knows Colonel Trask an’ his wife, Miss Anita Bowles as was.”
Then followed minute directions as to lanes and stiles and short cuts through gaps in fences, which Josie must take to find the cousin. Josie felt the detective business was too easy if information was handed out in this manner without any questions on her part. Peewee Valley—the Trasks! The very things she wanted to know and now she knew how to find them without so much as asking a question!