“He yonda home ‘cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu’ kotch de flat’s mornin’ An’ he holla an’ holla. He know dey warn’t gwine cross dat flat ‘gin jis’ fu’ Sampson.”
Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the table, asked the boy-with a certain uneasiness in her voice-“Ain’t he coming at all to-day? Don’t he know all the work he’s got to do? His mother ought to make him.”
“Don’t reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad,” with which assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which he still clutched firmly.
One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje, and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife.
“What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?” he inquired good humoredly. “How does she get on with those Creoles down there?”
“You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain’t going to mix with Creoles. She can’t talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw don’t begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It’s just what I thought-with their ‘Muddy-Graw,’ “ Fanny added, contemptuously.
“Coming from such high authority, we’ll consider that verdict a final clincher,” Hosmer laughed a little provokingly.
Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle Worthington’s letter. “She says if I’ll agree to go back with her, she’ll pass this way again.”
“Well, why don’t you? A little change wouldn’t hurt.”
“ ‘Tain’t because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken place like this. I guess you’d be glad enough,” she added, with voice shaking a little at her own boldness.
He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife, completely puzzled.
The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. “I’m fool enough about some things, but I ain’t quite such a fool as that.”
“What are you talking about, Fanny?”
“That woman wouldn’t ask anything better than for me to go to St. Louis.”
Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping his hands together and looked at his wife.
“That woman? Belle Worthington? What do you mean, any way?”
“I don’t mean Belle Worthington,” she said excitedly, with two deep red spots in her cheeks. “I’m talking about Mrs. Laferm.”
He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of glance.
“Well, then, don’t talk about Mrs. Lafirme,” he said very slowly, not taking his eyes from her face.
“I will talk about her, too. She ain’t worth talking about,” she blurted incoherently. “It’s time for somebody to talk about a woman passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women’s husbands-”
“Shut up!” cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising violently from his chair.
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