CHAPTER XVIII
SAMANTHA CAREWE
But Jud Carpenter did not finish his work by starting the slubbing machine. Samantha Carewe, one of the main loom women, was absent. Going over to her cottage, he was told by her mother, a glinty-eyed, shrewd looking, hard featured woman—that Samantha was “mighty nigh dead.”
“Oh, she's mighty nigh dead, is she,” said Jud with a tinge of sarcasm—“I've heurn of her bein' mighty nigh dead befo'. Well, I wanter see her.”
The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the doorway with her form. Jud fixed his hard cunning eyes on her.
“Cyant see her; I tell you—she's mighty po'ly.”
“Well, cyant you go an' tell her that Mister Jud Cyarpenter is here an' 'ud like to kno' if he can be of any sarvice to her in orderin' her burial robe an' coffin, or takin' her last will an' testerment.”
With that he pushed himself in the doorway, rudely brushing the woman aside. “Now lem'me see that gyrl—” he added sternly—“that loom is got to run or you will starve, an' if she's sick I want to kno' it. I've seed her have the toe-ache befo'.”