behind.

At first cotton-picking was interesting, the fluffy bolls looking
like artificial roses and the stray blossoms strangely shaped and
delicately pink. Sometimes a group of Negro pickers would chant
in rich voices as they picked. "Da cotton want a-pickin' so
ba-ad!" But it was astonishing to the Beechams to find how many
aches they had and how few pounds of cotton when the day's
picking was weighed.

Tired and achy as they were at night, though, they were glad to
find children in the next shack.

"Queer ones," Grandma called them.

"It's their talk I can't get the hang of," Grandpa added. "It
may be English, but I have to listen sharp to make it out."

Daddy trotted Sally on his foot and laughed. "It's English all
right--English of Shakespeare's time, likely, that they've used
for generations. They're Kentucky mountaineers, and as the
father says, 'a fur piece from home'."

It was through the eldest girl that the children became
acquainted: the girl and her toothbrush.

Rose-Ellen was brushing her teeth at the door, and Dick was
saying, "I ain't going to. Nobody brushes their teeth down here,"
when suddenly the girl appeared, a toothbrush and jelly glass in
her hand, and a younger brother and sister following her.