town by way of Spring Street, composing en route the invective that he had formerly reserved to his sitting-room. He would stride through the wide chill hall of Dixieland, bursting in upon Eliza, and two or three negresses, busy preparing the morning meal for the hungry boarders who rocked energetically upon the porch. All of the objections, all of the abuse that had not been uttered when she bought the place, were vented now.
“Woman, you have deserted my bed and board, you have made a laughing stock of me before the world, and left your children to perish. Fiend that you are, there is nothing that you would not do to torture, humiliate and degrade me. You have deserted me in my old age; you have left me to die alone. Ah, Lord! It was a bitter day for us all when your gloating eyes first fell upon this damnable, this awful, this murderous and bloody Barn. There is no ignominy to which you will not stoop if you think it will put a nickel in your pocket. You have fallen so low not even your own brothers will come near you.’Nor beast, nor man hath fallen so far.’”
And in the pantries, above the stove, into the dining-room, the rich voices of the negresses chuckled with laughter.
“Dat man sho’can tawk!”
Eliza got along badly with the negroes. She had all the dislike and distrust for them of the mountain people. Moreover, she had never been used to service, and she did not know how to accept or govern it graciously. She nagged and berated the sullen negro girls constantly, tortured by the thought that they were stealing her supplies and her furnishings, and dawdling away the time for which she paid them. And she paid them reluctantly, dribbling out their small wages a coin or two at a time, nagging them for their laziness and stupidity.
“What have you been doing all this time? Did you get those back rooms done upstairs?”
“No’m,” said the negress sullenly, slatting flatfootedly down the kitchen.
“I’ll vow,” Eliza fretted. “I never saw such a good-for-nothing shiftless darkey in my life. You needn’t think I’m going to pay you for wasting your time.”
This would go on throughout the day. As a result, Eliza would
