Papa started laughing as soon as I popped the hard candy balls into my mouth.
"You look just like a little fox squirrel toting two big hickory nuts!"
My mouth was so stretched I couldn't answer a word. I could move my tongue, but not my lips. And I wanted to tell Papa the candy tasted so much like lemonade that I didn't mind my cheeks being funny as a squirrel's.
"Want to do a little dusting for me now?"
I nodded my head.
"The feather duster's right over yonder in the corner, hanging on a nail. See it?"
I nodded my head again.
"Start up there at the front window, hon. And while you do that, I'm gonna be back in the back straightening up the sacks of oats and cow feed."
I began brushing up and down on the window panes. A feather broke off the side of the duster and fluttered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I just put it on the windowsill. Then, I looked out the window—down toward Mister Hansen's gin, on past Mister Goode's grist mill, and up the road toward home.
"Pa—" I had to grab both candy balls out of my mouth. "Papa, yonder comes somebody riding on a little bitty mule with a dog following him."