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But Ruth did not let the colored girl go away without a pair of half-worn footwear of Agnes' that came somewhere near fitting Alfredia. "It's just so nice to have so many things that we can afford to give some away," sighed Agnes. "My! my! but we ought to be four happy girls." One of the Corner House girls was far from happy the next day.
"All of us are going, Alfredia," proclaimed Tess. "Are you going?" "Mammy done said I could," said Alfredia, rolling her eyes. "But I dunno fo' sho'." "Why don't you know?" asked Agnes, the curious. "Dunno as I got propah clo'es to wear, honey. Got ter look mighty fetchin' ter go ter school ya-as'm!" "Is that why you've got that great bow on your head?" giggled Agnes.
Alfredia Blossom, Jackson Montgomery Simms Blossom, and Burne-Jones Whistler Blossom had stored bushels of hickory nuts and butternuts in the cockloft of their mother's cabin, and they had promised to help fill the stockings that the girls' sewing class was to make. Every girl of Tess' acquaintance was going to do something "lovely," and she wanted to know what she could do?
She wished to get to the bottom of the mystery: "Why do you want folks to look at your head, Alfredia?" "So dey won't look at my feet. I done got holes in my shoes an' dey is Mammy's shoes, anyway. Do you 'spects I kin git by wid 'em on Monday for dey's de on'iest shoes I got ter wear?" The Kenways laughed they couldn't help it.
And what a great bow of ribbon she has tied on her head. It's big enough for a sash, Dot." "Looks like a house afire," commented Neale again. By this time Alfredia's smiling face was recognizable under the flaming red bow, and Ruth explained: "She is one of Uncle Rufus' grand-daughters. Her mother, Petunia Blossom, washes for us, and Alfredia is dragging home the wash in that little wagon."
Petunia was "fast brack," as her father declared an enormously fat, jetty-black negress, with a pretty face, and a superabundance of children. To enumerate the Blossom family, as Petunia had once done for Ruth's information, there were: "Two married and moved away; two at work; twins twice makes eight; Alfredia; Jackson Montgomery Simms; Burne-Jones Whistler; the baby; and Louisa Annette."
The young folk were resting on the back porch on Thursday afternoon, chattering like magpies, when suddenly Neale O'Neil spied a splotch of brilliant color coming along Willow Street. "What do you call this?" demanded he. "Is it a locomotive headlight?" "Oh! what a ribbon!" gasped Agnes. "I declare!" said Tess, in her old-fashioned way. "That is Alfredia Blossom.
The ribbon, Alfredia wore was at least four inches wide and it was tied in front at the roots of her kinky hair into a bow, the wings of which stuck out on each side like a pair of elephant ears. The little colored girl came in at the side gate, drawing the wash-basket after her. "How-do, Miss Ruthie and Miss Aggie? How-do, Tessie and Dottie? You-all gwine to school on Monday?"
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