Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/267

Rh Aunt Peachy was real nice to me. She asked me what I had done with all my pretty hair and when she begged me for a lock of it I was right complimented. I never did like her at all but I thought it was real sweet of her to care about having some of my hair. I took over the whole plait that Aunt Pearly Gates had run through the hole in the top of my bonnet. I guess she's got enough to make hoodoo spells on the whole family."

Rebecca laughed a little uneasily.

"You surely don't believe any of that nonsense," Spot said severely.

"No-o, not exactly—"

"If you are afraid of her, you ought not to go to The Hedges," suggested Spottswood.

"I'm not truly afraid—just kind of squeamish. I like to shiver a little all up and down my backbone. That's the way Aunt Peachy makes me feel. I know she can't do anything to me just because she has my plait, but it's kind of fun to half way believe she might, although I know in my sane mind that she couldn't."

When Spottswood and Rebecca told Major Taylor of the remark the old negress had made concerning the hub factory he only laughed.

"Ridiculous!" he snorted. "It was taken on a hundred-year lease at first by my grandfather,