“I’m more cheerful, too,” said Josie, “although I shouldn’t be when there is poor Ursula eating her heart out with misery. I couldn’t be as cheerful as I am if I were not perfectly sure we will find little Philip.”
“Sure we will find him,” said Teddy.
CHAPTER XII
IN AN OLD KENTUCKY HOME
The cabin of Sis Minerva and Brer Abe was so picturesque that Josie regretted not having a camera with her. It was of logs with a stone chimney, that leaned outward as though bowing an invitation to Santa Claus to enter. Bright geraniums peeped from the windows, where hung wreaths of holly and swamp berries. A hound barked as they approached and then ran under the house, routing out a hog that had been comfortably scratching his back on the joists of the floor of the lean-to summer kitchen. Several coon skins were nailed to the side of the house, there to tan in the wind and sun—a natural method often employed in the country.
The old couple were at home, enjoying themselves according to their respective tastes. Sis Minerva was stirring up a custard, which she intended to freeze with the timely snow and Abe playing on his old accordion, which was so much the worse for wear it was necessary to bribe several of the many grandchildren to stand by and pinch the cracks together to extract anything like a tune from the ancient instrument.
“I done mended and mended ’til ’tain’t no use in mendin’ no mo’. Fas’ as I mends in one place she bus’ out in another, an’ bein’ as I’s got mo’ gran’babies dan I is time I jes uses ’em stid er glue,” Abe explained.
The interior of the cabin was even more picturesque than the exterior. Brer Abe, in his clean Christmas shirt and long tailed brass-buttoned coat, a relic of his coachman days, sat in an arm chair, his feet in grey yarn socks stretched to the cheerful burning logs piled up in the great fireplace. He was playing a sad and mournful hymn on the cracked accordion with three little children hanging desperately to the places that were beyond mending. Sometimes the air demanded that he must stretch his arms far apart and then one little girl would be lifted almost from her feet in her endeavor not to let the “chune git out de wrong way.”
Teddy and Josie peeped in the window for a moment before knocking. The barking of the dog had not been noticed, because of the wailing hymn, and all unconscious of an audience the old man squirmed out his melody.
Sis Minerva appeared at the door of the kitchen, a huge yellow bowl in her arms.