"I s'pose 'some'ers' means up to Lon's, as usual," snapped the girl bitterly. "He might better live there and be done with it."
She was a slight creature, too pale and worn for even the natural prettiness of youth, but her large, lovely eyes suggested that in a more fortunate environment she might have been described as beautiful, by that stretch of imagination which chroniclers of the great are allowed. Many a so-called beauty of high caste has shown less natural endowment than did poor Lucy, but dragging care had wiped out the life and sparkle until, no one thought of her as attractive, even—only pathetic.
The man let go of the squabbling children to lift the fretting baby from her weary arms, and followed her into the unkempt room, which made almost the sole scene in her onerous life.
"You ain't got your dishes done yet, either; have you, child?" he asked in sympathizing tones. "Well, well, I'll keep the youngsters while you red things up. Here, girls, you come now and help sister, while I 'tend baby, and we'll have things comfortable in a jiffy. Let's all try and be good together."
The admonition proved effectual. Soon the girls were quietly at work, and the little baby's startled eyes closed beneath the influence of the gentle lullaby crooned by this rough-looking man, from whom some dainty women might have shrunk in fear, had they met him on the public street. When the little one was safely deposited in his wooden cradle, the other baby, scarce two years older, being consigned to an uncomfortable nest between restless Rufie and Tilly, in a bed scarcely wide enough for them, the tired oldest sister dropped down on the door-step near kind old Nate, who sat tilted back against the house wall, the legs of his wooden chair boring deep holes in the sandy soil.
"You're pretty tired, ain't ye?" he asked with strong sympathy. "It do sorter seem as if you had more'n your share sometimes, Lucy—it do, certain sure!"
"I'd just give up if 'twa'n't for you and Marry," she returned wearily, crouching in a forlorn heap, with elbows on knees and chin in palms. "It's hard enough for women that's got their own young ones, and can mind 'em and make 'em mind. I can't do nothing with ours, and when I go to pa he just gets cross and lights out. And then he comes home—well, you know how. He hit me with a stick, last night."
Nate's strong teeth came together with a click.
"He did? The old——" His sentence ended in a mutter.
"Oh, you can curse him"—she laughed drearily—"but what good does it do? It don't take the ache out o' that welt on my arm and back any. The skin's broke and it smarts."