it'll be all right ter the trustee!"

"What trustee do you mean?" Jane asked. There was a pucker of
mystification between her eyes as she looked up at Mrs. Owsley.

But that countenance did not change. It never changed. The same
yellowish face, rather long and horse-like, beneath the same hair
plainly brushed back, looked at Jane now as it had looked at the world's
multitude of privations and pittance of joys, this last score of years.

"The trustee," she answered, "what sees as how we-uns goin' ter school
gits shoes--outen the school fund, I reckon 'twuz he said, or sumthin'
that a-way. He's a-stayin' down thar by the Cunnel's, some-un says, so
mebbe ye knows 'im. Not as I allow ter be beholden ter no one:--but
commencement's commencement!"

"Why, Mrs. Owsley!" an accusing voice cried from the window. "He made
us promise not to tell who he was!"

"'N' I don't kyeer what he done!" the imperturbable one answered. "I
want ye-all ter know I don't take nuthin' underhand from nobody, less'n
hit's my man, Bill!"

The accuser ducked from sight.

"Do you mean," Jane asked, "a man about twenty-four, or five, or six, or
maybe seven--with sort of brown or grayish eyes, and--and rather
handsome?"

"I don't know nuthin' 'bout all them colors in his eyes. I don't know
nuthin' 'bout that," she repeated, "but I do 'llow he smoked them vile
cigarettes till a body couldn't breathe!"

Jane's eyes left the mother of nine, swept past Nancy whom she saw still
bending over her work, and finally rested in the shadows of some cool
ferns. This somewhat unexpected announcement sent a wave of
pleasure--evanescent, perhaps hardly perceptible--sweeping over her.
Rather abruptly she said:

"I think your gingham looks very well, but you might get a nice
print--if you'll have time to make it!"

"That's jest what I war a-thinkin' t'other day," the impassive face
replied. "Red, with white dots on hit, sez I ter Mother Owsley, is jest
the nicest thing! 'N' I sez ter Mister Bowser as how I hankered fer a
dress like that; but he sez he done quit keepin' hit no moh. He sez he
did hev a sight of hit onct, but so many of the wimmin folks come in ter
buy hit, 'n' hit war sech a sight of trubble gittin' up 'n' settin' down
agin, cuttin' off pieces 'n' waitin' on 'em, that he jest th'owed out
what he had left 'n' allowed he wouldn't buy no moh."

This was all very serious to Mrs. Owsley and Jane replied in the same
vein:

"Then a blue polka dot.