"Not till you eat your biscuits and fried meat. You and that Shoogie have got the whole morning before you. Come away from the window, now, Bandershanks. You want syrup on your biscuits?"
"No'm. Just smear on butter."
By the time I got out to the well lot, cabbages were piled everywhere, and Doanie and Huldie had gone back into the garden to cut more. Shoogie was sitting down in the sand, leaning back against a big water tub.
I picked my way toward Shoogie, being careful not to bump into the mounds of cabbages or the kraut-making stuff spread all the way from the well curbing to Mama's wash shelter. Even so, I stumbled against a sack of salt.
Shoogie saw me and grinned. I squatted down beside her to watch her rake together some sand for a frog house. She already had one black foot buried in the sand and was heaping a stack of wet dirt on top of her other one.
"My frog houses fall in, every time!" I said.
"I told you, get water and sprinkle hit on, and pat the sand hard. Pile hit up high and pat some more. Then, wiggle your toes just a little speck 'fore you eases out your foot!'
Shoogie knew how to make the best frog houses in the world. So I raked up a pile of sand and shoved my foot down under it. I smoothed the sand over, then gave it a pounding with both fists. Next I reached around behind Shoogie to get some water out of the tub she was leaning against.
"Let hit trickle 'tween your fingers on the sand. You is doin' good!"
"Look, Shoogie! My house! It's staying up!"