Oh! Hi! I thought there weren't nobody down here. You looking at the river? I likes to do that too. It's so pretty to look at, 'specially from that rock where you're a-settin'. I was just takin' a rest from my mornin' chores and thought I'd kind o' take a walk down here. Nice an' warm t'day, not too airish.
Is that yer big black shiny car on the side of the road down a piece? It is? Well it sure is fine lookin', I ain't never seen a car like that around here afore! It's a what? A Hudson? Well, whatever 'tis it's sure a lot diff'rent than th' old model T my Daddy drives around in, and even Daddy's car's one of th' only ones in the county. Most other folks uses a horse and buggy.
Well, where's my manners! My name is Ella-Sue, sir, Ella-Sue Bandy. Alan? Well how d'ya do, Mr. Alan! I'm certainly pleased to meet you. Don't know as I ever got t' shake hands with a gentleman like you afore! Do you mind if I sets a spell and talks with you? I don't get to talk with strangers much around here, 'specially ones with big shiny cars like yours! I'll just set on this old stump next to you.
So where you from Mr. Alan? You talk like you ain't from these parts! Oh, from up north? And where you off to now? Where? You goin' all the way down to Florida? Oh my, that's far, ain't it? I don't rightly know how far but it sounds far to me. I ain't never been out o' Carolina myself. You wanna know somethin' funny? I just found out t'other day that there's actually two Carolinas, North and South. Huh! I just knew I was in Carolina and I thought that was all, now I find out I'm in the North one. Guess it don't really make no difference, I'm just where I'm at and that's that!
So what ya do traveling around so far, Mr. Alan? Oh, you sell things? What kind o' things? Oh, I'm sorry to ax you so many questions Mr. Alan! I'm just excited t' meet somebody from so far away is all. Kitchen imp ... uh, im-plee-ments? Uh, I'm sorry but I don't know what ... oh, gadgets! Sure, I know what they are! Momma's got a whole passel o' them in the kitchen drawr, I been playing with them whimmy-diddles ever since I was a little girl. Maybe you can go see Momma an' show 'er some new ones. We live in that ol' house up the road, maybe you passed by it. Used-a be a big farm there like a thousand years ago but now it's just a house an' a barn, an' the house was just 'bout fallin' down when Daddy and Momma moved into it afore I was borned, and since whoever lived in it before done gone off ain't nobody knows where, well, it just sort o' became our house. It got three whole bedrooms in it! Daddy and Momma have the biggest one they call the master, the one in the front, an' I'm in one in th' back. My little brother used-a be in there with me too, but now he's in one Daddy fixed up in the barn, Momma says it's for privacy, but Daddy says he don't want a bunch o' cross-eyed chinee babies runnin' 'round some day ... I don't rightly know what he means, but anyways I'm all alone in my room now. Oh, an' then there's my Uncle Cal, he been in the room right next t' mine since he got back from that big war, the one fightin' agin somebody named the Hun. He got shot over in that France place. He cain't walk good anymore so he spends all o' his time in his room. Well, not all of it, but he don't get out much, sep'n when he drives inta town with Daddy. At home he uses this crutch-thing t' git around with.
Me? Oh I'm nineteen, well actually eighteen and a half but gettin' real close to nineteen. I know I looks real young, what with sometimes wearing my hair in braid pigtails like I am today. Lots o' folks who don't know me good think I'm a whole lot younger, and a lot of my friends are a lot younger'n me too, like my best friend Jolene, she's twelve but we get along real well. We likes to play games an' dolls, an' tell secrets an' stuff. And she sits next to me in school, she does, and helps me when I don't know th' answers. Our school has just this one room and one teacher - Mr. Crandall, I like him, he's nice an' he's real good lookin' - and the little kids sits on one side, the real old kids on th' other, and the kids who are just startin' to get big in the middle. I should be with the big kids but I just cain't make no sense outta the lessons Mr. Crandall gives them so he lets me sit with Jolene and th' other middle kids. I can do most of the lessons they get, 'specially when Jolene helps me, she's sharp as a tack she is! So anyways Momma braids my hair like this and dresses me up for school in short little dresses so's I'll look more like the middle kids. Sometimes she makes me have ponytails instead when she sees me puttin' th' ends o' my braids in my mouth. At least ya don't suck ya thumb no more, Ella-Sue, she says, an' I laughs, 'cause I hardly ever does that now!
So, Mr. Alan, were you good at school? Did ya like it? Wow, all the way through high school! You must be real smart for a fact. An' was you in th' Army like my Uncle Cal? You was? Was ya ever wounded? Well tha's good, guess you was one o' the lucky ones, an' now you can travel all over creation sellin' im-plee-ments! Maybe if'n you sells a lot you'll get t' be rich! Oh, you wanna be the boss one day? Well, that would be a fine thing for a fact, and I sure do wish you kin do that, Mr. Alan - I wish it once, I wish it twice, I wish it chicken soup with rice! That's a poem Jolene done learned me.