“Dead; got sick o' life. Wouldn't
eat or take any medicine; kind o' pined away.”
“What was the trouble?”
“Wal, ye know, he had to live with himself,” said Uncle Eb, “an' he wa'n'. what ye might call good comp'ny. He couldn't help it, an' I always felt kind o' sorry fer Hosper. They got him so scairt over there at the white church that he was 'fraid to live an' 'fraid to die, an' fer a long time he didn't do either. He thought it was his duty to suffer. God had cursed the world, an' that was the reason why men had to sweat an' toil. Think o' his days—full o' fear an' repentence an' atonement an' hell an' ancient history. He kind o' straddled his span o' life. One foot was in the future an' the other in the past. No wonder he had the rheumatiz. Nobody liked him. He got to
