Mammy Krenda gave a sniff.
“Ku Klux! Ku Klux!! If prowlin’ mecks Ku Klux, I wonder what you wuz doin’ last night? An’ what you doin’ now?”
“Jerry’s been around, the drunken rascal!” thought Steve to himself. He knew Jerry was courting a granddaughter of old Krenda’s.
“How’s Jerry coming on with his courting?” he asked, irrelevantly.
“N’em mind about Jerry,” said the old mammy. “Jerry know mo’ ’bout co’tin’ than some other folks.”
This was interesting, and Steve, seeing that she had something on her mind, gave her a lead. He learned that the old woman thought her “chile” was not well—that she was “pesterin’ herself mightily” about something, and, what was more astonishing, that Mammy Krenda held that he himself was in a measure responsible for it.
A little deft handling and a delicate cross-examination soon satisfied Steve that Jacquelin stood no chance. He hinted as to Middleton. Mammy Krenda threw up her head. “She ain’ gwine marry no Yankee come pokin’ in folks’ kitchen.”
That disposed of it so far as Middleton was concerned.
“How about McRaffle? He’s always hanging around?” laughed Steve.
Krenda gave a sniff and started on.