Pretty soon she commenced wearing red ribbon around her neck and having her hair wrapped fresh once a week. Then she told him she was the good cook that cooked all the picnic things, and ironed all of Dilsey's clean dresses; also that she had seventy-five dollars saved up that she would be willing to spend on a grand bridal trip the next time she got married. Mammy Lou is a smart old thing, and so she talked to him until he said, well, he would just as soon marry her as Dilsey, if she would stop cooking for us, and cook for _him_ and iron _his_ shirts all the time. She promised him she would do this, like people always do when they're trying to marry a person, although it looks very different afterward. None of mammy's other husbands had been so proud. _They_ would not only let her cook, but would come around every meal time, in the friendliest kind of way, and help her draw a bucket of water. This is why the whole family's heart is breaking and we feel so hungry to-night. She's quit, and the wedding is to-morrow. This morning early she came up to the house to ask mother if it would be excusable to take off her widow's bonnet, not being divorced from Uncle Mose but four months; also how she had better carry her money to keep Bill from getting "a holt" of it. She said she wouldn't trust any white Yankee with a half a dollar that she ever saw, much less a coffee-colored one. Mother was so mad at her, and so troubled about the sad biscuits and the watery gravy at breakfast that she said she hoped he would steal every cent of the seventy-five dollars before the ceremony was over, and maybe _that_ would bring her to her senses. "And me not to get to go to George Washington!" mammy said in a hurt-like voice. "Why, Mis' Mary!" "Where is this George Washington?" mother took time to ask, thinking mammy would know she was just poking fun at her, but she didn't. "Law! Ain't it surprising how little my white folks do know! Why, it's the place where the president and his wife lives. Mr. Williams is mighty well acquainted with the president and says he's shore I could git a job cooking for the fambly if I was 'round lookin' for jobs. But I ain't to cook for nobody but _him_ from now on." Mother didn't encourage her to talk about her love and matrimony any, so she took me by the hand and we went out and sat down on the kitchen doorstep and had a long conversation. She seemed mighty sad at the notion of leaving us, but was so delighted at the idea of marrying a young man (as anybody naturally _would be_) that she couldn't think of giving that up. Pretty soon in our conversation she commenced telling me about the things that happened many years ago, when I was a little child, like they say folks do when they're going on a long journey or die.