"Why, no. They won't bother us. Ginger knows that!" She lifted the lap robe and peeped at Ginger. He hadn't opened his eyes.
Mister Hawk's hounds soon quit barking. After they'd watched us a little longer they let the hair ridged up on their necks fall back in place and trotted back to the porch to lie down.
As soon as we crossed Ash Branch I knew we were nearly to Aunt Vic's house. Her house wasn't like ours. Sure, it was sort of oldish gray, same as ours. All the houses in Drake Eye Springs were gray, because that's the color houses turn unless you put paint on them. But Aunt Vic's house didn't have a long porch across the front. It had just a half porch. And she didn't have fireplace chimneys at both ends of her house. She kept her front room warm with a nice Ben Franklin stove.
Whoever made Aunt Vic's house forgot to put a wide hall down through the middle so her dogs could trot through whenever they pleased. I knew Ginger didn't like that. The main thing I liked about Aunt Vic's house, though, was that her kitchen was another little house sitting out in the back all by itself.
Aunt Vic helped me out of the buggy. But Ginger jumped out.
"Let's go straight on in the kitchen, Bandershanks. I want to kindle a fire in the cook stove before we go to the cow pen to milk."
After supper, I watched Jim-Bo oil his squirrel rifle. Aunt Vic called him Baby Jones because he was her youngest boy, but he was still lots older than me. Both of my older cousins, Casey and Hi, had pulled off their boots and had edged their chairs close to the heater so they could prop their feet against the top of the wood box while they read.
Jim-Bo had started calling me his Cuddin Sally Sue. I told him and told him that wasn't my name!
"Well, all right, you're Cuddin Sookie Sue."
"That's my doll's name!"