She appeared quite horrified, and Sanford was astonished. She seemed to be a woman, for all her height and the extent of her hands.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"As I am a Christian woman," said Onnie. "I never was a lady, nor could I ever be such a thing."
"Well," said Sanford, "I don't know, but I suppose you can dry me."
He climbed out of his tub, and this novel being paid kind attention to his directions. He began to like her, especially as her hair was of a singular, silky blackness, suggesting dark mulberries, delightful to the touch. He allowed her to kiss him and to carry him, clothed, back to the house on her shoulders, which were as hard as a cedar trunk, but covered with green cloth sprinkled with purple dots.
"And herself's in the libr'y drinkin' tea," said his vehicle, depositing him on the veranda. "An' what might that be you'd be holdin'?"
"Just a rattle off a snake."
She examined the six-tiered, smoky rattle with a positive light in her dull, black eyes and crossed herself.
"A queer country, where they do be bellin' the snakes! I heard the like in the gover'ment school before I did come over the west water, but I misbelieved the same. God's ways is strange, as the priests will be sayin'."
"You can have it," said Sanford, and ran off to inquire of his mother the difference between women and ladies.