"Man alive, Aunt July!" Mrs. Doggett's face assumed a look of horror. "Ef you are a fortune-teller, you hain't tuck to eatin' cooked snakes, have you?" "Mussy, no!" laughed Aunt July. "Them's chit'lin's--hog guts. Ain't you never et none? I's plumb ashamed o' my poah eatin's, Mis' Ann," she went on when she had spread the table with a piece of embroidered damask, and set on a steaming bowl of the chitterlings, a pone of brown cornbread from the oven, a pitcher of buttermilk, and a jar of blackberry jam from the cupboard, and had poured coffee from a little pipkin: "but I ain't got no flour this week. I got mighty little use for wheat-bread, myse'f, but I loves to have hit for company! Set up, dough, and eat: hit'll take de aidge offen yoah honger, and lay yoah stomach 'tel you git home: I'll go corn de beasties." While she was engaged in feeding Big Money and the pigs, the mistress of the house heard a shriek from within. Blowing like a scared sow, she rushed to her guest. Mrs. Doggett stood in her stocking feet on the stool. "I've put my foot on a snake!" she screeched: "hit's under the table! I feel like I'm bit!" Aunt July reached under the table and, grinning, lifted out an enormous brown toad. "Hit's Jeremiah, my pet," she explained soothingly: "Jeremiah, hain't you 'shamed yo'se'f, skeerin' de lady!" [Illustration: "Hit's Jeremiah, my pet," she explained soothingly.] "Did you 'broider this cloth, Aunt July?" asked Mrs. Doggett when the old negress was folding the cloth. "Naw'm, I wuz a field gal in de ole times: I nuvver larnt much o' de needle. Dis heah kiver," she said oracularly, "_come_ to me! Hit used to belong to a town lady what allus has a passel o' gal company a hankerin' after dey fortunes!" "_I_ used to do 'broidery and all sech," sighed Mrs. Doggett. "I made ever' thread o' my onderclothes 'broidered; but, after I married and got to havin' chillern, I quit all nice work!" "You's had yoah sheer o' hard times wid work and young uns, ain't you?" commiserated the old negress, with her eyes on Mrs. Doggett's long slender hands, with their big veins, and curved thumbs. "Hain't I, though!" agreed Mrs. Doggett: "not two years between none o' 'em. I'd 'a' ruther had five pairs o' twins than ten chillern so clost together, but I didn't have my ruthers. I used to have to put the bed post on the baby's dress when I went to the spreng, to keep hit from crawlin' in the fire, and lead the next youngest one with me! Law, hain't chillern warryin' on a woman! "They plague a body worse'n the each a gittin' in thengs! 'Ma,' I'd say when I used to go to my mother's, and she'd have to put up her aigs and ever' theng out'n the way o' the chillern: 'Ma, I'd give anytheng ef my chillern wuz all grown! I'd have so much more pleasure a visitin' you!' And Ma'd say: 'Aw hush, Ann, they're a trompin' on your toes now, but after a while they'll be a trompin' on your heart!'