“Sherry’s left de plantation, Joy. I run em off.” His black brows knit into an angry line.
“Why—why—how come you done dat, Cun April?” Joy’s teeth looked white and sharp, her red satin dress shimmered in the firelight, her words were husky, half whispered.
“I had to, Joy. Sherry is a impudent rascal. I’d ’a’ killed em if e had ’a’ stayed here.”
April scratched his head and his eyes turned uneasily toward the door, but before he spoke, tears welled up in Joy’s eyes, a deep sob burst from her bosom, and she got up and ran back into the shed-room where she lay on the bed and wept, in spite of Big Sue’s reproaches.
“Why, Joy! You ought not to take on so! Why, Honey, Sherry’ll be back befo’ long.”
XVII
HOG-KILLING
Now that Joy had come home for good, Big Sue planned to fix up the cabin. April sent Brudge to help Breeze whitewash the outside with oyster-shell lime, burned and crushed right on the beach. Fresh clean newspapers were brought from the store with eggs and each wide sheet spread with white-flour paste and stuck fast to the inside walls over the old soiled worn-out papers that were cracked and broken by last year’s wind and weather. When this was done, the cabin was snug and tight. With the window blinds pulled in and the doors closed, not a bit of cold air could get in except through the cracks in the floor.
But Joy’s blood must have got thin, for she wore her long black cape constantly, and had spells of shivering in spite of its warmth.
The weather was scarcely cold enough for hog-killing, but Big Sue said Joy needed some rich food to thicken and hotten her blood. The girl took little interest in anything. She’d stand and gaze vacantly out of the window as if her soul were gone far away and her eyes tried to follow its flight.
Jeems, the shoat in the pen, must be killed. Joy’s appetite must be tempted somehow before her blood turned to pure water. She ate scarcely enough to keep a bird alive.