Aunt Kate turned to Black Andy now.
“Mebbe Cassy ain’t for long,” she said. “Mebbe she’s come out for what she came out for before. It seems to me it’s that, or she wouldn’t have come; because she’s young yet, and she’s fond of her boy, and she’d not want to bury herself alive out here with us. Mebbe her lungs is bad again.”
“Then she’s sure to get another husband out here,” said the old man, recovering himself. “She got one before easy, on the same ticket.” With something of malice he looked over at Black Andy.
“If she can sing and dance as she done nine years ago, I shouldn’t wonder,” answered Black Andy, smoothly. These two men knew each other; they had said hard things to each other for many a year, yet they lived on together unshaken by each other’s moods and bitternesses.
“I’m getting old—I’m seventy-nine—and I ain’t for long,” urged Aunt Kate, looking Abel in the eyes. “Some day soon I’ll be stepping out and away. Then things’ll go to sixes and sevens, as they did after Sophy died. Some one ought to be here that’s got a right to be here, not a hired woman.”
Suddenly the old man raged out:
“Her—off the stage to look after this! Her, that’s kicked up her heels for a living! It’s—no, she’s no good. She’s common. She’s come, and she can go. I ain’t having sweepings from the streets living here as if they had rights.”
Aunt Kate set her lips.
“Sweepings! You’ve got to take that back, Abel. It’s not Christian. You’ve got to take that back.”
“He’ll take it back all right before we’ve done, I guess,” remarked Black Andy. “He’ll take a lot back.”