"What is your news?" asked Mary Lee, changing the subject. "I don't believe it's anything much. You always get so excited over trifles."
"I reckon you won't call this a trifle," replied Nan, "when I tell you that mother is going away for weeks and that Aunt Sarah is coming back to look after us, and that Randolph and Ashby Gordon are coming here to board all winter. I should think that was something to get excited over," she said triumphantly.
Mary Lee stared. "You're making it all up just to fool me."
"I'm not, either. What in the world would I want to do that for? It's true, every word of it. You can ask mother if it isn't."
"What's she going for?" asked Mary Lee.
"Oh, just because. Grown people have their reasons for doing things and we can't always be told them," replied Nan, with, it must be said, rather a condescending air.
"Do you know why?" asked her sister, determined upon getting to the heart of the matter.
"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't."
"If you do, I think you are downright mean not to tell me. I'm 'most as old as you, and she's my mother as much as she is yours."
These latter facts Nan could not deny, so she answered weakly, "Well, anyhow, I shan't tell."
Mary Lee was slow to wrath, but once aroused she did not hesitate to speak her worst. She deposited her roll of horse blanket upon the ground and the duck with satisfied quacks waddled forth from the encumbering folds, glad of her freedom. "You are altogether too high and mighty, Nancy Weston Corner," said Mary Lee, quite outraged by Nan's refusal. "You're a scurvy old pullet, so there!"
"I like your way of calling names," returned Nan contemptuously. "I should think any one could tell that you had been near a slop barrel; you talk like it."
Mary Lee did not wait for further words, but fled to her mother, Nan following, taking the shorter way and reaching her mother first. "I tried to tell Mary Lee without saying why," she began breathlessly, "and she called me a horrid name, so I don't know how it will turn out."
"I think we shall have to tell her," said Mrs. Corner. "I did not realize that it might be difficult for you."
"She's coming now," said Nan.
Mary Lee's footsteps were hastily approaching. She burst into the room with, "Mother, is it true that you are going away?"
"Yes, dear child."
"What for? Nan was so mean and wouldn't tell me."
"I didn't give Nan permission to tell you why I was going."
"She needn't have been so disagreeable about it though," said Mary Lee. "Why didn't she say that you told her not to tell?"
"You didn't give me a chance," put in Nan. "You called me a scurvy old pullet before I could explain."
"What a name, Mary Lee," said Mrs. Corner reprovingly. "Where did you hear it?"
"Phil says it."
"Don't say it again. If you lose your temper like that and cannot bridle your tongue, I am afraid your mother will have many sorry moments while she is away trying to regain her health."
In an instant Mary Lee was on her knees by her mother's side. "Are you ill, mother?" she asked anxiously.
"Not very, but I may be if I do not have a change of climate, so I am going to take a trip. I have hardly left this place for eight years and more. I shall come back trig as a trivet, Mary Lee, so don't be troubled about me."
Nan left her mother to explain matters further and sought the twins who were amicably swinging under a big tree. As she unfolded her news to them the point which at first seemed to be most important was the coming of the two boys. Jack objected to their arrival, Jean welcomed it, and straightway they began a discussion in the midst of which Nan left them. Her brain was buzzing with the many thoughts which her interview with her mother suggested. She determined to be zealous in good works, and immediately hunted up Mitty that she might see that all was going well in the kitchen.
Mitty had not much respect for one younger than herself and paid no attention when Nan entered, but kept on singing in a high shrill key:
"Whe-e-en Eve eat de apple,
Whe-e-e-en Eve eat de apple,
Whe-en Eve eat de apple,
Lord, what a try-y-in' time."
"Mitty, have you everything out for supper?" asked Nan with her mother's manner.
Mitty rolled her eyes in Nan's direction, but vouchsafed no reply, continuing to sing in a little higher key:
"When she-e gabe de co' to Adam,
Whe-en she gabe de co' to Adam,
Whe-e-en she gabe de co' to Adam,
Lord, what a try-y-yin' time."
"I want to know," repeated Nan severely, "if you have everything out for supper?"
"I has what I has," returned Mitty, breaking some splinters of wood across her knee.
"I wish you'd answer me properly," said Nan, impatiently.
"Yuh ain' de lady ob de house," returned Mitty, provokingly. "Yuh ain' but jest a little peepin' chick. Yuh ain' even fryin' size yet."
"I think when mother sends me with a message, it is your place to answer me," said Nan with her head in the air. "I will see if Unc' Landy can get you to tell me what mother wants to know." And she stalked out.
As Unc' Landy was Mitty's grandfather, and the only being of whom she stood in awe, this had its effect. "I tell yuh, Miss Nan, 'deed an' 'deed I will," cried Mitty, running after her and hastily enumerating the necessary articles to be given out from the pantry. "'Tain' no buttah, 'tain' no sugah, jest a little bit o' co'n meal. Oh, Miss Nan!"
But Nan had passed beyond hearing and was resolutely turning her steps toward Unc' Landy's quarters, a comfortable brick cabin which stood about fifty yards from the house. The old man was sitting before its door industriously mending a hoe-handle. It was not often that Nan complained of Mitty, for she, too, well knew the effect of such a course. Upon this occasion, however, she felt that her future authority depended upon establishing present relations and that it would never do to let Mitty know she had worsted the eldest daughter of the house. "Unc' Landy, I wish you'd speak to Mitty," said Nan. "She wouldn't tell me what to give out for supper and mother gave me the keys to attend to it for her; she's busy sewing."
Unc' Landy seized the hoe-handle upon which he was at work, and made an energetic progress toward the kitchen, catching the unlucky Mitty as she was about to flee. Brandishing his hoe-handle, he threateningly cried: "Wha' yo' mannahs? I teach yuh show yo' sassy ways to one of de fambly!"
Up went Mitty's arm to defend herself from the impending blow while she whimpered forth: "I done say 'tain' no buttah; 'tain' no sugah; the's a little bit o' meal; an' Miss Nan ain' hyah me."
"Ef I bus' yo' haid open den mebbe she kin hyah yuh nex' time," said Unc' Landy catching the girl's shoulder and beginning to bang her head against the door.
But here Nan, feeling that Mitty was scared into good behavior interfered. "That will do, Unc' Landy. If she told me, it is all right."
"She gwine speak loudah an' quickah nex' time," said Unc' Landy, shaking his hoe-handle at Mitty. "Yuh tell Miss Nan what she ast yuh, er I'll fetch Mr. Hoe ober hyah agin an' try both ends, so yuh see which yuh lak bes'." And he went off muttering about "dese yer no 'count young niggahs what so busy tryin' to be sma't dey ain' no time to larn sense."
The thoroughly humbled Mitty meekly answered all Nan's questions and Nan felt that she was fortified with authority for some time to come.
Nan was always shocked and repelled by Unc' Landy's methods, and only in extreme cases was she willing to appeal to him. Such appeals, sometimes bringing swifter and more extreme punishment, so affected Nan as to make her avoid Unc' Landy for days. He was always