“Well, go ahead and cry for pity’s sake,” laughed Cousin Roxy. “All the better, child.”
Kit had been chosen for a dialogue between the North and the South. Helen, fair haired and winsome, made a charming Southland girl, very haughty and indignant, and Kit was a tall, determined young Columbia, making peace between her and the North, Sally Peckham.
It was Sally’s first appearance in public, and she was greatly perturbed over it. Life down at the mill had run in monotonous channels. It was curious to be suddenly taken from it into the limelight of publicity.
“All you have to do, Sally, is let down your glorious hair like Rapunzel,” said Kit. “It’s way down below your waist, and crinkles too, and it’s like burnished gold.”
“It’s just plain everyday red,” said Sally.
“No, it isn’t, and anyway, if you had read history, you’d know all of the great and interesting women had red hair. Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth and Theodora and a lot more. You’re just right for the North because you look sturdy and purposeful.”
“You know, Cousin Roxy, I think you ought to be in this too,” said Jean, towards the last.
“I am,” responded Cousin Roxy, placidly. “I’m getting up the supper afterwards. Out here you always have to give them a supper, or the men folks don’t think they’re getting their money’s worth. Sometimes I have an oyster supper and sometimes a bean supper, but this time it’s going to be a chicken supper. And not all top crust, neither. Plenty of chicken and gravy. We’ll charge fifty cents admission. I wish your father were here. He’d enjoy it. Heard from them lately?”
Jean nodded, and reached for a letter out of her work-basket on the table.
“Uncle Hal’s better, and Mother says—wait, here it is.” She read the extract slowly.