Drumright's long, rugged face crimsoned with rising rage. His lean, knotted hands twitched as he started forward in his seat. He could have slapped the delicate, unmoved, disdainful face before him.
"To yo' preacher, that's nothin' less than a insult," he stated, looking from one woman to the other.
"Well, Sis won't let nobody name this to her," Octavia broke in hurriedly. "An' I ort to have warned you—"
"Warned me!" snorted the preacher. "Callisty won't let this and that be named! Well, if she was my gal, she'd git some things named to her good and plenty."
Callista bent to pick up, from the porch floor, an acorn that had fallen with a sharp rap from the great oak over their heads; she tossed it lightly out into the grass, then she made as though to return to her cooking.
"Hold on!" Drumright admonished her. "I ain't through with you yet. This here mammy o' yourn sp'iled you till them that ort to give you good advice is scared to come within reach. But I ain't scared. I've got a word to say. This man Cleaverage has got property—and a right smart. Hit's been told all around that he's sold out to the coal company and is goin' West with—well, 313 they say he's goin' West. Now, havin' a livin' wife and a infant child, he cain't make no good deed without you sign; and what I want to know is, has he axed you to sign sech? Ef he has, I hope you had the sense to refuse. Ef he comes to you with any sech, I want you to send for me to deal with him—you hear? Send for me."
The rasping voice paused. Drumright was by no means through with his harangue, but he stopped a moment to arrange his ideas. He dwelt with genuine comfort on the thought of being called in to have it out once for all with Lance Cleaverage. Then Callista's voice sounded, clear and quiet.
"Mr. Drumright," she said, "if you're never sent for till I do the sending, you'll stay away from this house the rest of yo' days. I'm a servant here, a-workin' for my livin' and the livin' of my child. Them that my grandfather and my mother bids to this house, I cook for and wait on; but speak to you again I never will. Mammy, the dinner's ready; if you don't mind putting it on the table, I'll go out and see is the baby waked up."
With this she stepped lightly down and walked across to her own cabin.
Drumright turned furiously upon Octavia. She, at least, was a member of his church, and bound to take his tongue-lashings meekly. What he found to say was not new to her, and she 314 accepted it with tears of humiliation; but when he wound up with declaring that she had brought all this about by giving her daughter to an abandoned character, even she plucked up spirit to reply.