"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty
times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?"

"I wanter see Miss Phyl."

"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool
away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable,
where you belong."

'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that
part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky
stared after him in amazement.

"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.

Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the
store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room
finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was
sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her
"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.

She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham
Lincoln Randolph?"

"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live
oak at the corral."

"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----"