"'Tain't possible to keep dat chile at home," she explained. "Yes'm. I takes keer of him. Miss Maimie, she's in a hospital, an' dey ain't nobody to raise James Mandeville but his old mammy."
"I ain't comin', mammy," declared her charge, positively.
"Yes, you is comin', honey; don' you talk to mammy dat way. 'Tisn't pretty. Looks like it's mighty hard to raise you polite, James Mandeville."
Norah delighted to talk with her, and gathered from her conversation that her greatest pleasure, next to a funeral, was to take James Mandeville to white folks' church on Sunday afternoon, "to see dem chillen march and sing." To her enthusiasm was due the aspiration of her charge to be a choir boy, and he was often heard singing lustily versions of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and "O Paradise," which were all his own.
"Dey's ladies, store or no store," Belle was overheard remarking to Susanna. "I knows quality; you can't fool Belle, no'm."
"I never in my life felt so rich," Marion said, rattling the money drawer.
It was Saturday evening at the end of their first week. All was in order in the shop, the long table pushed back, the small one with the lamp brought forward, the shades drawn, the door barred, and Norah now rested comfortably in one of the roomy chairs with a gay pillow behind her head.
"We have done very well, I think," she agreed.
"I perceive this is one subject upon which my enthusiasm is greater than yours. It must be because you have made money before." Marion still hung over the money drawer.