He took it and said softly, “Good-bye, Sister.”
Granny held her close and could not let her go. “You’s been the light of my house,” she said. “Tell your mother I bless her for letting me have you. And I send you back to her sound and well, honey. She’ll be full of happiness. But we-all ’ll miss you sorely.”
Hazel could only give her one more hug. Then she scrambled to the seat between the driver and Miss Davis, and the horse started off.
When she looked back she saw Granny standing in the road, her hand on Scipio’s shoulder.
CHAPTER XIII
HOME
It was necessary to stay in Montgomery over night in order to make railroad connections; so Hazel was able to visit Mr. and Mrs. Jenks again, while Miss Davis went to a hotel. Mrs. Jenks and her husband were delighted at the change in Hazel’s appearance. The thin, shy child had grown almost plump and was full of spirits. She talked gaily at dinner, she romped with the children, and she gave her host such a generous good-night hug that he was breathless and disheveled when it was over.
“Excuse me,” Hazel called as she ran upstairs, “but that is the way Mr. Perkins likes me to say good-night to him. And, oh,” ecstatically, “I shall see him next Sunday!”
The following morning Mrs. Jenks put up an enormous box of luncheons and breakfasts and suppers for Hazel. Such a quantity of bread and butter sandwiches, such a lot of sliced chicken and hard-boiled eggs, and a jar of guava jelly with a spoon that didn’t have to be returned.
“It will be less expensive for you than to get your meals on the train,” Mrs. Jenks began hesitatingly.
Hazel broke in impetuously, “I know all about it, Mrs. Jenks. I’m not wanted in the dining car because I’m colored. I’m traveling North as Miss Davis’s maid, and I’m to do little things for her and to play I really am a maid. She says her traveling dress hooks up the back and around the side with about a hundred hooks, and that she could never wear it except for me. And I must keep her hair smooth for her because her mother says it is always untidy—it isn’t, it’s beautiful. And I’m to fan the flies away from her when she takes a nap. As if I thought flies were on trains! But we are going to play that I am her maid, to make a game of it, because it is better to do that than to keep feeling angry. How many meals do I eat? One, two, three, four, five? This is plenty, for I can get milk and cocoa. I’m going to sleep in an upper berth, think, and climb up on a ladder! It will be great fun.”