“It looks awful kinder nice the way you hold up your head. Now, my aunt, she kinder slumps along. She’s a real nice woman, you know, but she don’t look’s though she had much gumption.”
Another silence.
“Say, what kin I do?” he asked next.
“Mercy on us!” ejaculated Miss Lucinda, “don’t ask me. I thought you were going to roast potatoes.”
“I thought p’r’aps you might be kinder lonesome all alone, and I’d jest as soon help you wash up. I’m useter it. I kin make beds and sweep and wash dishes and do lots o’ things. Try me and see.”
“Thank you, I can get along very well; you needn’t help,” Miss Lucinda said in grim accents of dismissal but the boy did not move.
“I s’pose you’re pretty busy,” he ventured presently.
“Well, yes, rather,” Miss Lucinda answered shortly.
“Do you usually have a real good time Fourth o’ July?” he went on.
Miss Lucinda gasped. “Well, no. I can’t say I do,” she answered in mournful truthfulness.