"Oh! At Hallowe'en? When we dress up in sheets and things?"
"Yes. Maybe these colored children believe in ghosts. But of course we don't!"
"No-o," said Rose thoughtfully. "Just the same I wouldn't like to think of ha'nts if I was alone in the woods at night. Would you, Russ?"
Russ dodged that question. He said:
"I don't mean to be alone in the woods around here at night. And neither do you, Rose Bunker."
Of course neither of them had the least idea what was going to happen to them before they started North from the Meiggs Plantation.
Mammy June's cabin was of white-washed logs, with vines climbing about the door that were leafless now but very thrifty looking. There were fig trees that made a background and a windbreak for the little house, and a huge magnolia tree stood not far from the cabin. The front door opened upon a roofed porch, and an old colored woman of ample size, in a starched and flowered gingham dress and with a white turban on her head, was rocking in a big arm chair on this porch when the children appeared.
"Lawsy me!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly to show firm white teeth in spite of her age. "Is this yere a celebration or is it a parade? Miss Philly, you got a smooch on dat waist, and your skirt is hiked up behind. I declar' I believe you've lost a button."
"Why, so I have, Mammy June," answered Phillis. "And more than one. Nobody has time to keep buttons sewed on up at the house, now that you're not there."
"Shiftless, no-count critters, dem gals up dere. Sho, honey! who is all dese lil' white children?"