asked Daddy. There isn't any such thing. It's like we say 'ghosts.'"

"Oh! At Hallowe'en? When we dress up in sheets and things?"

"Yes. Maybe these colored children believe in ghosts. But of course we
don't!"

"No-o," said Rose thoughtfully. "Just the same I wouldn't like to think
of ha'nts if I was alone in the woods at night. Would you, Russ?"

Russ dodged that question. He said:

"I don't mean to be alone in the woods around here at night. And neither
do you, Rose Bunker."

Of course neither of them had the least idea what was going to happen to
them before they started North from the Meiggs Plantation.

Mammy June's cabin was of white-washed logs, with vines climbing about
the door that were leafless now but very thrifty looking. There were fig
trees that made a background and a windbreak for the little house, and a
huge magnolia tree stood not far from the cabin. The front door opened
upon a roofed porch, and an old colored woman of ample size, in a
starched and flowered gingham dress and with a white turban on her head,
was rocking in a big arm chair on this porch when the children appeared.

"Lawsy me!" she exclaimed, smiling broadly to show firm white teeth in
spite of her age. "Is this yere a celebration or is it a parade? Miss
Philly, you got a smooch on dat waist, and your skirt is hiked up
behind. I declar' I believe you've lost a button."

"Why, so I have, Mammy June," answered Phillis. "And more than one.
Nobody has time to keep buttons sewed on up at the house, now that
you're not there."

"Shiftless, no-count critters, dem gals up dere. Sho, honey! who is all
dese lil' white children?"

"Bunkers," explained Frane, Junior.

"What's dem?" asked Mammy June, apparently puzzled. "Is dey to play
with, or is dey to eat? Bunkers! Lawsy!"

Rose giggled delightedly.

"They are to play with," laughed Alice suddenly. "That is what they are
for, Mammy June."

"You see you play pretty with them, then," said the old woman, shaking
her head and speaking admonishingly.

Rose and Russ Bunker at least began to understand that this pleasant old
colored woman had had the chief care of the three young Armatages while
they were little. Perhaps she had trained them quite as much as their
mother and father. And they seemed to love Mammy June accordingly.

That the old woman loved little folks and knew how to make friends with
them was soon apparent. She had Mun Bun and Margy both together in her
ample lap