Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/156

152 for breeding, they must have been bred from Eve and she certainly is always pictured as barefooted. Anyhow, it hurts my feet terribly to walk on rough places without my shoes and stockings. I don't see how you do it."

"I just scrooch up my toes this way and the stubble and pebbles and things don't touch the tender part o' my soles. I hate shoes. I reckon I'll have to wear 'em all the time when I get to be a man."

Rebecca was not often allowed to visit at The Hedges. The aunts disapproved of her association with the Bollings even more than with the negroes, but when she appealed to her grandfather for the privilege of an occasional call on her friends he consented, not that he was desirous of an intimacy between the families, but he could not but acknowledge the kindness shown Rebecca by Philip Bolling, and also he took a certain pleasure in treading on the aristocratic toes of his lady daughters.

So Rebecca was allowed an occasional trip across the river. She took a few more than her aunts were aware of, but she always confessed to her grandfather when her desire for companionship became too strong for her, and he laughingly absolved her for sneaking off without the knowledge of her feminine mentors.