Lolotte had evidently determined to undertake her father's work. Nothing could dissuade her; neither the children's astonishment nor Aunt Minty's scathing disapproval. The fat black negress came laboring into the yard just as Lolotte mounted upon the wagon. "Git down f'om dah, chile! Is you plumb crazy?" she exclaimed. "No, I ain't crazy; I'm hungry, Aunt Minty. We all hungry. Somebody got fur work in dis fam'ly." "Dat ain't no work fur a gal w'at ain't bar' seventeen year ole; drivin' Marse Duplan's mules! W'at I gwine tell yo' pa?" "Fu me, you kin tell 'im w'at you want. But you watch Nonomme. I done cook his rice an' set it 'side." "Don't you bodda," replied Aunt Minty; "I got somepin heah fur my boy. I gwine 'ten' to him." Lolotte had seen Aunt Minty put something out of sight when she came up, and made her produce it. It was a heavy fowl. "Sence w'en you start raisin' Brahma chicken', you?" Lolotte asked mistrustfully. "My, but you is a cu'ious somebody! Ev'ything w'at got fedders on its laigs is Brahma chicken wid you. Dis heah ole hen"-- "All de same, you don't got fur give dat chicken to eat to Nonomme. You don't got fur cook 'im in my house." Aunt Minty, unheeding, turned to the house with blustering inquiry for her boy, while Lolotte drove away with great clatter. She knew, notwithstanding her injunction, that the chicken would be cooked and eaten. Maybe she herself would partake of it when she came back, if hunger drove her too sharply. "Nax' thing I'm goen be one rogue," she muttered; and the tears gathered and fell one by one upon her cheeks. "It _do_ look like one Brahma, Aunt Mint," remarked the small and weazened Jacques, as he watched the woman picking the lusty fowl. "How ole is you?" was her quiet retort. "I don' know, me." "Den if you don't know dat much, you betta keep yo' mouf shet, boy." Then silence fell, but for a monotonous chant which the woman droned as she worked. Jacques opened his lips once more. "It _do_ look like one o' Ma'me Duplan' Brahma, Aunt Mint." "Yonda, whar I come f'om, befo' de wah"-- "Ole Kaintuck, Aunt Mint?" "Ole Kaintuck." "Dat ain't one country like dis yere, Aunt Mint?" "You mighty right, chile, dat ain't no sech kentry as dis heah. Yonda, in Kaintuck, w'en boys says de word 'Brahma chicken,' we takes an' gags 'em, an' ties dar han's behines 'em, an' fo'ces 'em ter stan' up watchin' folks settin' down eatin' chicken soup." Jacques passed the back of his hand across his mouth; but lest the act should not place sufficient seal upon it; he prudently stole away to go and sit beside Nonomme, and wait there as patiently as he could the coming feast. And what a treat it was! The luscious soup,--a great pot of it,--golden yellow, thickened with the flaky rice that Lolotte had set carefully on the shelf. Each mouthful of it seemed to carry fresh blood into the veins and a new brightness into the eyes of the hungry children who ate of it.