"I don't care if they be!" she answered in the same dully-irritated way. "What're they comin' here to-day for, I wan' to know." She stayed there immovably, till Mrs. Councill came down to see her, piloted by two or three of the children. Mrs. Councill, a jolly, large-framed woman, smiled brightly, and greeted her in a loud, jovial voice. She made the mistake of taking the whole matter lightly; her tone amounted to ridicule.
"Sim says you've been having a tantrum, Creeshy. Don't know what for, he says."
"He don't," said the wife, with a sullen flash in her eyes. "He don't know why! Well, then, you just tell him what I say. I've lived in hell long enough. I'm done. I've slaved here day in and day out f'r twelve years without pay—not even a decent word. I've worked like no nigger ever worked 'r could work and live. I've given him all I had, 'r ever expect to have. I'm wore out. My strength is gone, my patience is gone. I'm done with it—that's a part of what's the matter."
"My sakes, Lucreeshy! You mustn't talk that way."
"But I will," said the woman, as she supported herself on one palm and raised the other. "I've got to talk that way." She was ripe for an explosion like this. She seized upon it with eagerness. "They ain't no use o' livin' this way, anyway. I'd take poison if it wa'n't f'r the young ones."
"Lucreeshy Burns!"
"Oh, I mean it."
"Land sakes alive, I b'lieve you're goin' crazy!"
"I shouldn't wonder if I was. I've had enough t' drive an Indian crazy. Now you jest go off an' leave me 'lone. I ain't no mind to visit—they ain't no way out of it, an' I'm tired o' tryin' to find a way. Go off an' let me be."
Her tone was so bitterly hopeless that the great, jolly face of Mrs. Councill stiffened into a look of horror such as she had not known for years. The children, in two separate groups, could be heard rioting. Bees were humming around the clover in the grass, and the kingbird chattered ceaselessly from the Lombardy poplar tip. Both women felt all this peace and beauty of the morning dimly, and it disturbed Mrs. Councill because the other was so impassive under it all. At last, after a long and thoughtful pause, Mrs. Councill asked a question whose answer she knew would decide it all—asked it very kindly and softly: