“What are you studyin’ about now?”
Esther shuddered as she recalled the present.
“You ain’t thinking about startin’ up that fiddlin’ again, are you?” the other stopped short to ask. A shadow crossed the girl’s face.
“Jenny told me you had got it into your head to take lessons again from that old Dutchman at the college.”
“I have been thinking about it,” Esther answered calmly.
“Goodness knows I wouldn’t! I always thought the fiddle warn’t for anybody but men and niggers.” Her high-pitched voice was piercing. “Georgy got a juice harp somewhere, and I took it away from him and burnt the fetched thing up. I have always heard: ‘Let your children learn music if you want ’em to be no ’count.’” She stopped to get her breath. “Your cousin John thinks it’s an outrage—the idea of your taking lessons again. He knows nothing t’all about the man—but foreigners are a bad lot.”
“Did cousin John tell you that he opposed the idea?” Esther interrupted her to ask.
“He didn’t seem to take to it, any more than your trapsin’ over the woods by your lone self.”
“Did he tell you he thought that was wrong?”
“Well, not in so many words, but I can tell when a thing goes against the grain with him. He don’t like to hurt you. I tell him he thinks more of your feelings than your character. I just took it upon myself to tell you for your own good.”