"There, there!" says Lemuel. "Don't you hear it? Would a sane man sing like that?"
I rocked back and forth in bed and roared and laughed. "A sane man wouldn't," I says, "but a sane woman might, if she had strong enough lungs. That ain't Lot. Lot's gone to camp-meetin', to be gone till to-morrow night. That's his wife's aunt, Lucindy Hammond, from Denboro. She's goin' to keep house for us till he gets back."
[CHAPTER VII—THE FORCE AND THE OBJECT]
Well, it took all of fifteen minutes for me to drive the idea out of that critter's head that his relative had gone loony. I was hoppin' around on my sound foot tryin' to dress, while I explained things. I had enough clothes on to be presentable in white folks' society, when there come a whoop up the back stairs.
"Good morn-in'!" whoops Aunt Lucindy. "Breakfast is ready! Shall I fetch it up?"
"My soul!" squeals Cousin Lemuel, and bolts for his own room. I buttoned my collar by main strength and answered the hail.
"All hands on deck!" I sung out. "Fetch her along."
There was a mighty stompin' on the stairs, and then through the door marches as big a woman as ever I see in my born days. 'Twa'n't only that she was fleshy,—she must have weighed all of two hundred and thirty,—but she was big, big as a small mountain, seemed so, and was dressed in some sort of curtain-calico gown that made her look bigger yet. She was luggin' a tray heaped up with vittles enough for a small ship's company.
"Good mornin'," says she, in a voice as big as the rest of her, and as cheery as the fust sunshine on a foggy day. She was smilin' all over, but there was a square look to her chin—the upper one, for she had no less than two and a half—that made me think she could be the other thing if occasion called for. "Good mornin'," says she. "Is this Lemuel?"
"It ain't," says I. "Cousin Lemuel is in disability just at present. My name's Snow."