Each word was slowly pronounced and widely slurred, as if Americy heard a great throng singing. Lethe arose and walked twice up and down the chamber, but she came back to her seat before the table, and presently she broke into another outcry which put a swift stop upon Americy’s song.
“I said if he spends one quarter on Lou, or if he walks with her one time in the dark, I’d cut her clean open with this-here knife. I’ll knife her, and Ross he knows I will.”
Stig laughed a great burst of ill-balanced laughter and began to cry out, “She’s done it, she’s done it. Afore now. A whole lot. God’s sake. Lou Trainer. God knows. I want be there when you-all cuts her guts out. See old Lou Trainer’s insides drip out.”
Lethe’s words were set widely apart, dispersed by hate. She pushed the knife back with a careless unseeing gesture, or she rested her hands on the edge of the table, leaning hard upon her palms. “I said I would and I will,” she continued to say, or she made her oath. Her words were set against Stig’s sudden laughter and Americy’s singing or weeping, or from time to time there would be a space of quiet when no one spoke.
“There’s singen in the church. I got to go. Where’s my hat. I got to go,” Americy said. She got up from the bed and walked around the room, but she forgot the hat when it did not come to hand and settled again to the bed, and presently she sang, as before intoning the words slowly.
I wandered far away from God,
Lord, I’m comen home.
The paths of sin no more I’ll trod,
Lord, I’m comen home....
“Oh, for God’s sake let me get my hands once ahold onto her throat. Let me get my hand in her face. I’ll stab to kill. I’ll learn her what I mean.”