“I’m not half as mean as some envious people would make out, if they could find anybody to take stock in what they say. If I’m not as honey-mouthed as some, that’s because I’ve got more sense than to diddle-daddle my time away in words when there’s so much to do. I’ll show you that I’m as kind at heart, Ollie, as any man in this county, if you’ll stand by me and do your part of what’s to be done without black looks and grumbles and growls.
“I’m a good many years older than you, and maybe I’m not as light-footed and light-headed as you’d like a husband to be, but I’ve got weight to me where it counts. I could buy out two-thirds of the young fellers in this county, Ollie, all in a bunch.”
“Yes, Isom, I guess you could,” she allowed, a weary drag in her voice.
“I’ll put a woman in to do the work here in the fall, when I make a turn of my crops and money comes a little 36 freer than it does right now,” he promised. “Interest on my loans is behind in a good many cases, and there’s no use crowdin’ ’em to pay till they sell their wheat and hogs. If I had the ready money in hand to pay wages, Ollie, I’d put a nigger woman in here tomorrow and leave you nothing to do but oversee. You’ll have a fine easy time of it this fall, Ollie, when I turn my crops.”
Ollie drained the dishpan and wrung out the cloths. These she hung on a line to dry. Isom watched her with approval, pleased to see her so housewifely and neat.
“Ollie, you’ve come on wonderful since I married you,” said he. “When you come here–do you recollect?–you couldn’t hardly make a mess of biscuits that was fit to eat, and you knew next to nothing about milk and butter for all that you was brought up on a farm.”
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson,” said she, with a bitterness which passed over Isom’s head.
Her back was turned to him, she was reaching to hang a utensil on the wall, so high above her head that she stood on tiptoe. Isom was not insensible to the pretty lines of her back, the curve of her plump hips, the whiteness of her naked arms. He smiled.
“Well, it’s worth money to you to know all these things,” said he, “and I don’t know but it’s just as well for you to go on and do the work this summer for the benefit of what’s to be got out of it; you’ll be all the better able to oversee a nigger woman when I put one in, and all the better qualified to take things into your own hands when I’m done and in the grave. For I’ll have to go, in fifteen or twenty years more,” he sighed.
Ollie made no reply. She was standing with her back still turned toward him, stripping down her sleeves. But the sigh which she gave breath to sounded loud in Isom’s ears. 37