“Stoop down,” she coaxed with a seductive, tender pressure of her hands, “and tell me, Joe.”
Isom’s step fell on the porch. He crashed the door back against the wall as he came in, and Joe and Ollie fell apart in guilty haste. Isom stood for a moment on the threshold, amazement in his staring eyes and open mouth. Then a cloud of rage swept him, he lifted his huge, hairy fist above his head like a club.
“I’ll kill you!” he threatened, covering the space between him and Joe in two long strides.
Ollie shrank away, half stooping, from the expected blow, her hands raised in appealing defense. Joe put up his open hand as if to check Isom in his assault.
“Hold on, Isom; don’t you hit me,” he said.
Whatever Isom’s intention had been, he contained himself. He stopped, facing Joe, who did not yield an inch.
“Hit you, you whelp!” said Isom, his lips flattened back from his teeth. “I’ll do more than hit you. You–” He turned on Ollie: “I saw you. You’ve disgraced me! I’ll break every bone in your body! I’ll throw you to the hogs!” 111
“If you’ll hold on a minute and listen to reason, Isom, you’ll find there’s nothing at all like you think there is,” said Joe. “You’re making a mistake that you may be sorry for.”
“Mistake!” repeated Isom bitterly, as if his quick-rising rage had sunk again and left him suddenly weak. “Yes, the mistake I made was when I took you in to save you from the poorhouse and give you a home. I go away for a day and come back to find you two clamped in each other’s arms so close together I couldn’t shove a hand between you. Mistake––”
“That’s not so, Isom,” Joe protested indignantly.