"Man alive, Aunt July!" Mrs. Doggett's face assumed a look of horror. "Ef you are a fortune-teller, you hain't tuck to eatin' cooked snakes, have you?"
"Mussy, no!" laughed Aunt July. "Them's chit'lin's—hog guts. Ain't you never et none? I's plumb ashamed o' my poah eatin's, Mis' Ann," she went on when she had spread the table with a piece of embroidered damask, and set on a steaming bowl of the chitterlings, a pone of brown cornbread from the oven, a pitcher of buttermilk, and a jar of blackberry jam from the cupboard, and had poured coffee from a little pipkin: "but I ain't got no flour this week. I got mighty little use for wheat-bread, myse'f, but I loves to have hit for company! Set up, dough, and eat: hit'll take de aidge offen yoah honger, and lay yoah stomach 'tel you git home: I'll go corn de beasties."
While she was engaged in feeding Big Money and the pigs, the mistress of the house heard a shriek from within. Blowing like a scared sow, she rushed to her guest. Mrs. Doggett stood in her stocking feet on the stool.
"I've put my foot on a snake!" she screeched: "hit's under the table! I feel like I'm bit!"
Aunt July reached under the table and, grinning, lifted out an enormous brown toad. "Hit's Jeremiah, my pet," she explained soothingly: "Jeremiah, hain't you 'shamed yo'se'f, skeerin' de lady!"
