“I never said yit; but it was Cook.”
“Ah!” We were off at last! “Cook”—I paused at the “k” and asked, “Do you spell it the short way or with an ‘e’?”
“Which?”
“How do you spell it? ‘C-double-o-k,’ or ‘C-double-o-k-e’?”
“No; not with no ‘e’ on to it! That would be cooky! It was jes’ plain Cook—C-o-o-k.”
I was willing to let it go at that and wrote it down. “And your first name now?”
“My fust name? I don’t tell my fust name to no strangers—’specially men!”
“I beg your pardon, but I am not asking that from impertinence, Mrs. Cook,” I explained carefully. “We do not mean to pry into people’s personal affairs—such things are of no concern to us—but you see there are probably a hundred or more Cooks in this city and if we didn’t have their first names there would be no telling them apart. All the ladies so far have told me their first names,” I declared, holding my book toward her with the evidence.
After peering at it intently for some time she relaxed in her chair, reassured. “Well, ’tain’t no name to be ’shamed of, if ’tis old-fashioned. It’s Ann.”