Aunt Louise, dressing for a party, shut her door sharply.
One could ask Aunt Cordelia. But Aunt Cordelia turned testy, and even told Emily Louise to run away.
Uncle Charlie was gone.
There was Aunt M’randa and Tom, so Emily Louise sought the kitchen. It was after supper. Tom was spelling the news from a paper spread on the table, and Aunt M’randa was making up the flannel cakes for breakfast.
“Who? Yo’ paw?” said Tom; “he’s a Republican; he done edit that kinder paper over ’cross the Ohier River, he does.”
There was unction in the glib quickness of Tom’s reply. Then he dodged; it was just in time.
“Shet yo’ mouf,” said Aunt M’randa with wrath; “ain’t I done tol’ how they’ve kep’ it from the chile.”
Emily Louise was swallowing hard. “Then—then—am I a Republican?” Her voice sounded way off.
Aunt M’randa turned a scandalised face upon her last baby in the family. “Co’se yer ain’t chile; huccome yer think sech er thing? Ain’t yer done learned its sinnahs is lumped wi’ ’publicans—po’ whites, an’ cul’d folks an’ sech?”
The comfort in Aunt M’randa’s reassuring was questionable. “But—you said—my papa—” said Emily Louise.