hangin' round her yeahs like shavin's. I don't like her, Mom Beck. She
keeps a-kissin' me all the time, an' a-'queezin' me, an' tellin' me to
sit on her lap an' be a little lady. Mom Beck, I de'pise to be a little
lady."

There was no answer to her last remark. Mom Beck had stepped into the
pantry for more eggs for the cake she was making.

"Fritz," said the Little Colonel, "yo' great-aunt Sally Tylah's comin'
this mawnin', an' if you don't want to say 'howdy' to her you'll have to
come with me."

A few minutes later a resolute little figure squeezed between the
palings of the garden fence down by the gooseberry bushes.

"Now walk on your tiptoes, Fritz!" commanded the Little Colonel, "else
somebody will call us back."

Mom Beck, busy with her extra baking, supposed she was with her mother
on the shady, vine-covered porch.

She would not have been singing quite so gaily if she could have seen
half a mile up the road.

The Little Colonel was sitting in the weeds by the railroad track,
deliberately taking off her shoes and stockings.

"Just like a little niggah," she said, delightedly, as she stretched out
her bare feet. "Mom Beck says I ought to know bettah. But it does feel
so good!"