Now minus a cook, it remained to the Wayfarers to prepare their own luncheon. Not stopping to bewail their cookless state, the four girls, under the direction of Miss Martha, attacked the task with the utmost good humor.
Miss Carroll, however, was not so optimistically inclined. Mammy Luce’s sudden departure had deprived her of a skilled cook, whom she could not easily replace. She was thankful that the panic had not extended to the maids. Providentially, Celia was absent for the day. According to Mammy Luce, Emily was still in ignorance of the “sperrit’s” visitation. She had eaten her noonday meal and gone back to her upstairs work before Mammy Luce had seen the dread apparition.
In the midst of preparations for the belated luncheon, she appeared in the kitchen, broom and duster in hand, her black eyes round with curiosity at the unusual sight which met them.
In as casual a tone as she could muster, Miss Carroll informed the girl that Mammy Luce had left Las Golondrinas. This news appeared not to surprise Emily so much as had the sight of the “young ladies an’ the Missis aworkin’ in de kitchen.”
“Huh!” was her scornful ejaculation. “I guess ole Luce done got skairt ’bout dat ere ghos’. Carlos wuz tellin’ her ’bout it t’other day. That Spanish fellah in the queer duds up thar in the pitcher gallery done walk aroun’ this house. He go fer to say he’s seen it. He am a liar. They ain’t no sech things ’s ghos’es, I says, but Luce, she says they is. She wuz ’fraid she’d see it.”
“Certainly there are no such things as ghosts, Emily,” Miss Martha made haste to agree. “I am glad to find you so sensible on the subject. Since you have mentioned it, I might as well say that it was this ghost idea which caused Mammy Luce to leave us.”
Miss Martha diplomatically avoided making a direct explanation of the affair. Once Emily learned Mammy Luce had insisted that she had actually seen a ghost, she might not remain firm in her conviction that there were “no sech things.”
“I hope Celia has no such foolish ideas about ghosts as Mammy Luce,” Miss Carroll continued inquiringly.
“Celie, she’s ’bout half an’ half. She says as thar might be or mightn’t. Only she says she ain’t gwine to git skairt ’less she sees one. Celie’n me, we don’t take no stock in that good-fer-nuffin’ Carlos. He am a sorehead, he am. Ef it’s ’greeable, Mis’ Carroll, I reckon I ain’t sech a bad cook. Leastways, I don’ mind tryin’. Ef yoh likes mah cookin’ mebbe I can git mah sister t’ come an’ do mah work.”
This was joyful news indeed. Needless to mention, Miss Carroll was not slow to take good-natured Emily at her word.