“Let’s call on our Pancake friends before we go any farther. What say?” said Preston, helping the girls out of the boat.
It was just what he had come for; he wished to set his conscience at rest about Pecy; and the girls had understood and sympathized all the while, without a word being said.
“Yes, let’s call,” said they.
The Pancakes lived in a small red cottage. Somebody says, “A red house blushes for the man who painted it;” but this house had more to blush for than that,—dirt and disorder without and within. It was badly weather-stained, and the windows were half glass, half rags. Outside there were two old tubs, a rake with stumpy teeth, and a mop lying across some battered tin pans. The children around the door were as shaggy-headed as their playmate, a lame old dog; and indeed the only graceful object about the premises was the soft blue smoke, which was happy enough to escape from the miserable house through the low chimney.
Here dwelt the family of Pancakes. The father had once been a decent, though “queer” man, living in Kentucky; but his wife died, and her death seemed to turn his brain and make him “queerer” than ever. He married again, a miserable woman, belonging to the sort of people in the South called “Crackers;” and from that time he did not seem to care what became of him. After many wanderings he had settled at last at Old Bluff, declaring he would not move again. His wife could not read, and he had given up books himself, and had no wish to send his children to school or church. Pecy, the eldest, was his first wife’s daughter, and by far the brightest of them all; but the stepmother made her a perfect drudge, and the browbeaten child had scarcely a moment to herself, except in going to and from the “paster.” Her loiterings at Camp Comfort had already caused her several beatings. The family lived chiefly by hunting and fishing, had nothing to do with their neighbors, and of course sank lower and lower, and grew poorer and poorer, though to their credit it must be said that they had never yet been known to steal.
Half a dozen children stood staring at Preston as he knocked at the cottage door. It was opened after some time by Mrs. Pancake, who wore a blue and yellow calico gown, falling in straight lines to her ankles; and though her feet were bare, her head was covered by a monstrous pink sun-bonnet, shaped like a flour-scoop. She had a cup in her hand, and was stirring the contents with a yellow spoon.
“Good morning,” said Preston for his whole party, who were grouped about him in silence.
The woman did not return the greeting, and they all felt that their presence was not welcome.
“We came to inquire for your little girl. We hope she did not take cold last night in the rain; did she?”
“Wal, yes, she done took a fever cold,” replied the woman crossly, pointing to a bunch of straw on the floor, whereon lay a child smelling at a rag rolled in tar. It was Pecy, and she immediately covered her face.