[Illustration: Off to the cotton fields]


After the truck ride from Jersey even a fifteen-dollar automobile
was luxury, with its roomy seats and two folding seats that let
down between.

Grandma joked, in her tart way, "I never looked to be touring the
country in my own auto!"

Rose-Ellen jiggled in the back seat. "Peekaneeka, Gramma!" she
said.

When it rained, the children scurried to fasten the side curtains
and then huddled together to keep warm while they played
tick-tack-toe or guessing games. For meals they stopped where
they could milk Carrie and build a small fire. At night they put
up the tent, unless a farmer or a policeman ordered them to move
on.

At first it seemed more of a peekaneeka than any of their
adventures thus far. They met and passed many old cars like
their own, and the children counted the strange things that were
tied on car or trailer tops while Grandma counted license
plates-when Sally was not too fussy. There was always something
new to see, especially when they were passing through Louisiana.
Daddy said Louisiana was the one state in the country that had
parishes instead of counties, and that that was because it had
been French in the early days. Almost everything else about it
seemed as strange to the children--the Spanish moss hanging in