“All right,” he returned. “Much obliged.”
Then he glanced unconcernedly at Judith, and, instead of making that haste toward the corn-hauling activities which his manner had suggested, moved loungingly up the steps. Beezy, from her sanctuary in Judith’s lap, viewed him with contemptuous disfavour. Her brother, not so safely situated, made to pass the intruder, going wide like a shying colt.
With a sudden movement Blatchley caught the child by the shoulders. There was a pantherlike quickness in the pounce that was somehow daunting from an individual of this man’s size and impassivity.
“Hold on thar, young feller,” the newcomer remarked. “Whar you a-goin’ to, all in sech haste?”
“You turn me a-loose,” panted the child. “I’m a-goin’ over to my Jude.”
“Oh, she’s yo’ Jude, is she? Well they’s some other folks around here thinks she’s their Jude—what you goin’ to do about it?”
All this time he held the small, dignified atom of humanity in a merciless grip that made Little Buck ridiculous before his beloved, and fired his childish soul to a very ecstasy of helpless rage.
“I’ll—kill—you when I git to be a man!” the child gasped, between tears and terror. “I’ll thest kill you—and I’ll wed Jude. You turn me a-loose—that’s what you do.”
Blatch laughed tauntingly and raised the little fellow high in air.
“Ef I was to turn you a-loose now hit’d bust ye,” he drawled.