“I guess so,” said the woman.
“Well, if you don't think he'd be offended, if he wouldn't git mad an' throw me out, I'd take it as a great compliment to sleep with the hired man.”
The woman put aside her sewing, rose wearily, lit a candle, and went upstairs to make the bed for Henry and me. She moved heavily in big shoes. Her face was pale and care-worn, her hands were knotted with toil. She was another slave.
“Her girl is away teaching school,” Smead explained to us. “One boy has worked his way to the grave—worn out as ye'd wear out a hoss. Another is working his way through college.”
We went to bed, but my sorrows kept me awake. Henry and I discussed them in whispers for half an hour. He said that he felt sure his sister Florence could lend us some money. Their bank account was in her name.
He fell asleep by and by, but I lay thinking of Florence and of my folly. I could hear Mrs. Bradshaw singing softly downstairs as she rocked in her sewing-chair. Near midnight I heard a carriage, and soon there was an entrance at the front door. Then I heard the woman speak in a low tone, and the angry answer of the man.
Had it come to this, he said, with an oath. A man couldn't do as he liked in his own house? He would see. Then he proceeded to break the furniture. Oh, the men were always at the bat in those days, and the women chasing the ball!
When we left in the morning, on a muddy road, Mr. Smead said to us:
“That man is another Simon Legree. The women are mostly slaves about here. If they could have their way, how long do you suppose the leading lights would be leading us? What would become of the trottin'-hoss an' the half-mile road to bankruptcy, an' perdition an' the red noses?
“Now, look at me. I went an' grabbed the earnings o' my wife an' children an' staked 'em on a hoss. Not that I've anything agin the hoss; hosses would be all right if it wa'n't for their associatin' with men. You put a five-thousan'-dollar hoss in the company of a ten-dollar man, an' the reputation o' the hoss is bound to suffer. If it's hard on a hoss, it's harder on a woman.