“Nobody ain’t done wrong an’ I ain’t a-never said they is. I ain’t said a word. This talk was jes’ some foolishness I done made up out’n my haid. But say, Miss Helen,—I’d kinder like ter stop at Mammy’s cabin over to Paradise befo’ I gits ter de count’s. I kin take my foot in my han’ an’ strike through the woods an’ beat the hay wagin thar, it goin’ roun’ by the road.”
“All right, Chloe!”
Helen rather fancied that Chloe wanted to see her sister, who was evidently contemplating some imprudence. She had been threatening to marry James Hanks, but her people had shown themselves very much opposed to it. Perhaps the girl was on the eve of an elopement which had called forth all of the above conversation from her sister. Where did she get all of those strange socialistic ideas? Was Lewis Somerville right and was the little learning a dangerous thing for these poor colored people? Surely she had helped Chloe by the little teaching she had given her. The girl was like another creature. She seemed now to have self-respect, and Helen felt instinctively that her loyalty to her and her family was almost a religion with her.
CHAPTER XVI
DRESSING FOR THE BALL
“How are Miss Ella and Louise going?” asked Douglas, as she stooped for a parting glance in the mirror which the sloping ceiling necessitated hanging so low that a girl as tall as Douglas could not see above her nose without bending double.
“In their phaeton,” answered Helen. “They don’t mind driving themselves. I asked them. You see with Sam gone they can’t get out the big old rockaway.”
“They must keep along near the hay wagon. Such old ladies should not be alone on the road,” said Douglas.
“I dare you to tell them that! They have no fear of anything or anybody. They say they have lived alone in this county for so many, many years that they are sure nobody will ever harm them.”