"Think I'm gwine let yuh go widout anything ter eat," snapped Susan, cross in her anxiety. "Whar yuh gwine?"
"Down to Cousin Tom's; he says he wants me to come; he wrote to father to-day." Frances was making powerful use of a casual invitation at the end of a business note. "Father has just told me. I'm going to-morrow. It's the very time, the weather is lovely. We'll gather walnuts and—and persimmons."
The constrained manner had no effect in fooling Susan. "Plenty walnuts up de road," she grumbled, "and as for 'simmons, 'simmons! I don't see nuthin' else in de fence corners anywhars, myself."
"Oh, Susan, it isn't that," half tearfully. "I want to go."
"Em—hm! So I thought, wants to go!" Susan opened the stove door and flung in a piece of wood—she could never be persuaded to cook with coal—and banged the door wrathfully. "What yo' pa gwine do widout you? How's I gwine get erlong?"
"You will get along all right. You know a lot more about housekeeping than I do. What I know you taught me."
This was one of Susan's prides—her own skill and her ready pupil's.
"How's dat young man foreber trapsin' aroun' hyar gwine git erlong?"