"Tell me, Miss Lady, what do you mean?" said he. "Tell me, child.
Ain't you happy here?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Yes, you do know; and I asked you if you weren't happy."
"Maybe you don't understand all about girls, Colonel Calvin," said
Miss Lady.
"I don't reckon I do. I don't reckon God A'mighty does, either, hardly. I thought you and your mother were contented here. You've made it a sort of heaven for me. I 'lowed it would run along for ever that-away."
Silence fell between them. "Miss Lady," said Blount, finally, "I came out here this morning on purpose to hunt you up. Now, listen. You say you're not happy here. I have been nothing but happy ever since you came. For a long time I didn't know why. I didn't know why I kept on asking where was Miss Lady at, where was Miss Lady gone to. 'Now, where is Miss Lady?' I found myself asking this very morning. About an hour ago I found myself asking that mighty strong. Then I just set myself down, right out there on the board-pile, and done reasoned it all out. Then I found out why I was asking that question so much. I found out why I never did get married, Miss Lady. The reason was, I never wanted to, till now."
Miss Lady was looking far away now, out across the fields. Her face was pale, save for a small red spot in either cheek. She moved as though she would have turned to face this man whose eyes she felt, yet this she was unable to do. She heard the voice go on, softer than she had ever known it before.
"Miss Lady," said Calvin Blount, "now listen to me. I've grown up down here like any savage. I haven't been much better than my old daddy, nor much different; and every man ought to grow better than his dad, if he can. I have driven the niggers to work, and I have been comfortable on what they raised. I can see it's right rough down here, though. I never used to think so. All I wanted in the world was rain enough to make the cotton sure, and mast enough to make the b'ahs come. I was happy, or thought I was, until you came, though I reckon I never really knew what that word meant before. I never did see a woman I liked as well as my pack of dogs. This place was good enough for me. Now, listen. I was fool enough to think for one minute, Miss Lady, for just one minute, that it was good enough for you. I thought maybe you and I could understand a heap of things together. Now, I hear you say that you're lonesome, that you're not happy here. Happy? Why, I tell you, Miss Lady, I am half-dying of lonesomeness right now, right here in my own home, on my own ground, in the only place in God A'mighty's world where I am fit to live."
"You must not," said Miss Lady, and turned toward him eyes in which stood sudden tears. "I must go. I must go away."
"Listen, I tell you," said Blount again, sternly, and put out a hand as she would have risen. "You go away? Where would you go? What would you do? Now, wait till I get done. Here," he cried almost savagely, "stand up here like I tell you, and listen to what I've got to say! Stand right there!" He drew in one grasp from his pocket his handkerchief and his gauntlet gloves, and swept a place clean upon the gallery floor before her.