Gathering up the hem of her skirt, she moved austerely from the rice, green in a dish on the vined sill, to the fresh shelled peas, the tray of soaking cashews, the sugary sour sop, under a wire cage away from the flies.
"You know, Seenie," she said, "when you get time I wish you'd plant some mustard seed over there in the garden. Look!"
"Yessum, Oi see—"
Grating cocoanut was a hazardous task. And it required a constant fluid motion. Grinding it till the skin became thin as a tip of flame, she had got her palm bruised, and blood spots spattered the white juicy nut.
She leaned over the window squeezing it.
"Under that tree," said Miss Esteena, "see where I mean?"
"Yo' mean—dey—yassum!"
"And perhaps you could stick in a few knots of cane and some pumpkins on the hedge."
"Passably some carrots, too, mum. But yo' won't want anyt'ing what gwine gaddah too much bush. Yo' fomembah wha' ole Hart say, he say too much grass will bring de snakes."
"There you go again, you and your snakes. Can't you think of anything else to be afraid of?"