Jerry, too, came in for his share of the general odium. She developed a great dislike for certain little inoffensive habits that he had, such as rubbing his hands together over the fire, whistling loudly as he went about his chores and teasing the pup for the fun of hearing him growl and snap. When he kissed her, which she now rarely allowed him to do, she was conscious with a shiver of repugnance that he needed a shave and that he had been chewing tobacco.
One afternoon, when existence about the house seemed intolerable, she put on her sunbonnet and started out on the cowpath that led along the top of the ridge and down into the hollow where Hat and Luke lived.
Hat was plucking geese in the back dooryard. This side of the house was littered with an accumulation of broken boards, rusty pieces of scrap iron, old rags, papers, empty bottles, discarded cooking utensils and rusted-out tin cans. Hat was not the pink-and-white vision that she had been on the day when she had first visited Judith. She wore a ragged calico wrapper, faded by much sun and many washings, into a dismal drab. About her waist was pinned a greasy gunny sack to serve as an apron. The short ends of her coarse black hair hung in uncombed rattails about her face; and her great feet, planked firmly on the ground with the toes turned in, were bare and very dirty. Her clothes, her hair, and her perspiring face were powdered thickly with the down from the feathers which fell like snow about her and frosted the ground for yards around. Between her knees she gripped the goose's head and with her big, coarse hands plucked away great handfuls of the soft, white, fluffy down from the breast and under the wings and stuffed them into a stiff paper flour sack that stood open at her side. The goose struggled and squawked mightily. Hat only gripped the prisoner more firmly between her great knees and went about her task more vigorously.
As Judith came up she was greeted by a strong smell of pigsty. Luke had had a good corn crop and was fattening several hogs that fall. Three or four lean hounds that were slinking about the dooryard barked in a perfunctory, spasmodic way, then relapsed into silence. Hat stopped for a moment to try to brush away with her down-covered hand some of the fluff that clung irritatingly about her eyes.
"Land alive, Judy, I sholy do hate to pick geese," she gasped. "I git all het up, an' then the durn stuff sticks in the sweat, an' you wouldn't believe haow it itches me. But it's gotta be done, an' there hain't nobody else that'll do it. Feathers is a good price this year. An' when these feathers is turned into money, it's me that's a-goin' to handle it. Las' time we sold feathers, Luke he got holt o' the money an' that's the last I ever seen of it. An' it was me that raised 'em an' fed 'em an' picked 'em an' done every durn thing."
Hat's voice trembled with anger and self-pity. Judith opened her mouth to start to say something; but Hat did not wait to hear what it might be. She was seething with a sense of wrong and glad to have somebody in whom to confide.
"The men sholy do have it easy compared with us wimmin, Judy," she continued. "Here all this summer I worked like a dawg in the terbaccer a-settin' an' a-toppin' an' a-hoein' an' a-wormin' an' a-cuttin'; an' all the fore part o' the winter I'll spend a-strippin'. An' then along about Christmas Luke'll haul the terbaccer off to Lexington an' sell it an' put the money in his pocket an' I won't never see a dollar of it. An' if I even want a few cents to buy me calico for a sun-bonnet, I gotta most go daown on my knees an' beg for it. I work jes as hard in the crop as he does. An' then what does he do while I cook an' wash dishes an' clean the house an' do the washin' an' tend the chickens an' turkeys? He feeds an' tends the hosses. That's what he's got to do outside of his crop. He hain't never picked a goose in his life; an' he wouldn't pick one if they died for lack o' pickin'. He says pickin' geese is wimmin's work. I tell you what I'm a-goin' to do. Nex' summer I ain't a-goin' to touch hand to his corn ner his durn terbaccer crop. If pickin' geese is wimmin's work, settin' an' hoein' terbaccer is man's work, an' he kin do it hisse'f 'ithout any he'p from me. I'm jes sick an' tired of slavin' like a mule an' gittin' nothin' fer it."
She paused on the brink of tears. A large tortoise shell cat arched her back and rubbed herself against the legs of her mistress, then reached up her head and sniffed delicately at the goose.
"An' then," she went on in the next breath, "with all his huntin' foxes most every night an' keepin' all them lazy haounds a-slinkin' raound the place an' a-eatin' up the feed the chickens otta have, he can't keep the foxes from gittin' my geese. Las' night when I went to ketch 'em up to coop 'em I found my biggest goose was missin'. An' this mornin' when I was a-lookin' up my turkeys, sure nuf I come on the feathers jes over that little hill yonder. I was that vexed an' disgusted. Think of it! Him an' all his durn haounds together ain't as smart as one fox! An' what's he a-doin' naow, while I'm a-slavin' an' a-sweatin' over these geese? He's a-standin' yonder by the shed a-chawin' terbaccer an' a-gassin' with young Bob Crupper. He's been there in that one spot this good two hours, an' he'll be there like enough till chore time to-night. Men makes me sick; always a-sunnin' theirselves around the barnyard like flies on a dunghill."