“Boston,” said the child, promptly. “Where do you live?”
“I used to live in Old Virginny. But my son, he's takin' me out to Illinoy, now. He's settled out there.” She treated the child with the serious equality which simple old people use with children; and spat neatly aside in resuming her pipe. “Which o' them ladies yender is your maw, honey?”
“My mamma?”
The old woman nodded.
Flavia ran away and laid her hand on Marcia's dress, and then ran back to the old woman.
“That your paw, with her?” Flavia looked blank, and the old woman interpreted, “Your father.”
“No! We're going out to see papa,—out West. We're going to see him to-morrow, and then he's coming back with us. My grandpa is in that car.”
The old woman now laid her folded arms on her knees, and smoked obliviously. The little girl lingered a moment, and then ran off laughing to her mother, and pulled her skirt. “Wasn't it funny, mamma? She thought Mr. Halleck was my papa!” She hung forward by the hold she had taken, as children do, and tilted her head back to look into her mother's face. “What is Mr. Halleck, mamma?”
“What is he?” The group halted involuntarily.
“Yes, what is he? Is he my uncle, or my cousin, or what? Is he going out to see papa, too? What is he going for? Oh, look, look!” The child plucked away her hand, and ran off to join the circle of idle men and half-grown boys who were forming about two shining negroes with banjos. The negroes flung their hands upon the strings with an ecstatic joy in the music, and lifted their black voices in a wild plantation strain. The child began to leap and dance, and her mother ran after her.