"Now, honey, just yo' quit pesterin' 'bout thet. Them young-uns 'druther sleep out'n in, any time. Ef I'd let 'em they'd grow up plumb wild. When yo've got worshed up come on right in the kitchen an' set by. Us Wattses is plain folks an' don't pile on no dog. We've et an' got through, but yo' take all the time yo're a mind to, an' me an' Microby Dandeline 'll set by an' yo' c'n tell us who yo' be, ef yo're a mind to, an' ef not hit don't make no difference. We hain't partic'lar out here, nohow—we've hed preachers an' horse-thieves, an' never asked no odds of neither. I says to Watts——"
Again the girl made forcible entry into the conversation. "My name is Sinclair. Patty Sinclair, of Middleton, Connecticut. My father——"
"Land o' love! So yo're Mr. Sinclair's darter! Yo' do favor him a mite about the eyes, come to look; but yer nose is diff'rnt to hisn, an' so's yer mouth—must a be'n yer ma's was like that. But sometimes they don't favor neither one. Take Microby Dandeline, here, 'tain't no one could say she hain't Watts's, an' Horatius Ezek'l, he favors me, but fer's the rest of 'em goes, they mightn't b'long to neither one of us." Microby Dandeline placed the food upon the table and sank, quiet as a mouse into a chair beneath the glass bracket-lamp with her large dark eyes fixed upon Patty, who devoured the unappetizing food with an enthusiasm born of real hunger, while the older woman analyzed volubly the characteristics, facial and temperamental, of each and several of the numerous Watts progeny.
Having exhausted the subject of offspring, Ma Watts flashed a direct question. "How's yer pa, an' where's he at?"
"My father died last month," answered the girl without raising her eyes from her plate.
"Fer the land sakes, child! I want to know!"
"Watts! Watts!" The lank form appeared in the doorway. "This here's Mr. Sinclair's darter, an' he's up an' died."
The man's fingers fumbled uncertainly at his beard, as his wife paused for the intelligence to strike home. "Folks does," he opined, judiciously after a profound interval.
"That's so, when yo' come to think 'bout hit," admitted Ma Watts. "What did he die of?"
"Cerebrospinal meningitis."