u triflin' vilyun'?

"Not a bit of it. You quarreled; an' Slap-back kep' gittin' bigger and
stronger and stiffer in the backbone while you was goin' it, an' at last up
comes this little hand of Emilie's. Whack! That was the time Slap-back
couldn't hold in, an' she jest laughed an' laughed over yo' shoulder. Ah,
the little red eyes she had, and the wiry hair! And that other one, the
fairy, Love, she was pickin' up her w'ite gown with both hands an' flyin'
off as if she had wings. Of course you didn't notice her. You was too taken
up with yo' friend."

"But Slap-back isn't our friend," declared Emilie earnestly.

The apple woman shook her head. "Bless yo' heart, honey, it's mean to deny
it now; but, disown her or not, she'll stick to you and pester you; and
you'll find it out if ever you try to drive her off. You'll have as hard a
time as little Dinah did."

"What happened to Dinah?" asked Franz, picking up the apple woman's clean
towel and beginning to polish apples.

"Drop that, now, chile! Yo' friend might cast her eye on it. I don't want
to sell pizened apples."

Franz, crestfallen, obeyed, and glanced at Emilie. They had never before
found their assistance refused, and they both looked very sober.

"Little Dinah was a chile lived 'way off down South 'mongst the cotton
fields; and that good fairy watched over Dinah,--Love, so sweet to look at
she'd make yo' heart sing.

"Dinah had a little brother, too, jest big enough to walk; an' a daddy that
worked from mornin' till night to git hoe-cake 'nuff fer 'em all; and his
ole mammy, she helped him, and made the fire, and swept the room, and dug
in the garden, and milked the cow. She was a good woman, that ole mammy,
an' 't was a great pity there wa'n't nobody to help 'er, an' she gittin'
older every day."

"Why, there was Dinah," suggested Emilie.

The apple woman stared at her with both hands raised. "Dinah! Lawsy massy,
honey, the only thing that chile would do was look at pictur' books an'
play with the other chillen. She wouldn't even so much as pick up baby Mose
when he tumbled down an' barked his shin. Oh, but she was a triflin' lazy
little nigger as ever you see."

"And that's why the red-eyed fairy got hold of her," said Franz, who was
longing to hear something exciting.

"'Twas, partly," said the apple woman. "You see there's somethin' very
strange about them fairies, Love and the error-fairies. The error-fairies,
they run after the folks that love t