uz' at her own house to mend that to a
perfegtion, he was astonizh' at her voice as much as her face. And
when he ask her name and she tell him, her firz' name, and say tha'z
the name of her _grand'-mere_, he's am-aze'! But when he see her
mother meeting them he's not surprise', he's juz' lightning-struck.

"Same time he try to hide that, and whiles he's mixing that cem-ent and
sticking that handle he look' two-three time' into the front of the
hair of that li'l' girl, till the mother she get agitate', and she
h-ask him: 'What you're looking? Who told you to look for something
there? _Ma foi_! you're looking for the _pompon gris_ of my mother
and grandmother! You'll not fine it there. Tha'z biccause she's so
young; when she's grow' up you'll see; but'--she part' as-ide her own
hair in front and he see', my father, under the black a li'l' patch of
gray, and he juz' say, '_Mon dieu_!' while she egsclaim'--

"'If you know anybody's got that _pompon_ in Louisiana, age of me, or
elze, if older, the sizter of my mother, she's lost yonder sinze mo'
than twen'y-five year'. My anceztor' they are _name_' Pompon for that
li'l' gray spot.'

"Well, then they--and her 'usband, coming in--they make great frien'.
My father he show' them thiz picture, and when he tell them the
origin-al of that also is name' Fortune, like that child an' her
mother, and been from in-fancy a slave, they had to cry, all of them
together. And then they tell my father all ab-out those two sizter',
how they get marrie' in that village with two young men, cousin' to
each other, and how one pair, a year avter, emigrate' to Louisiana with
li'l' baby name' Fortune, and--once mo' that old story--they are bound
to the captain of the ship for the prise of the passage till somebody
in Ammerica rid-eem them and they are bound to him to work that out.
And coming accrozz, the father--ship-fever--die', and arriving, the
passage is pay by the devil know' who'.

"Then my father he tell them that chile muz' be orpheline at two-three
year', biccause while seeming so white she never think she wasn' black.

"And so my father, coming ad that village the moz' unhappy in the
worl', he went away negs day the moz' happy. And he took with him some
photo' showing that mother and chile with the mother's hair comb' to
egspose that _pompon gris_; and also he took copy from those record' of
babtism of the babtism of that li'l' Fortune, _emigre_.

"Same time, here at home,