"I tell you, hell is heaped with just such people."
She went on in that strain that reminded me of St. Clair's "cursing up hill and down" that almost frightened the New England old maid of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." I trembled myself, expecting every moment that some member of the family would hear her.
Two days later was washing-day, and the cook, Aunt Winnie, told her mistress she was too sick to do the very large washing for three boarders besides the family. I heard the mistress cursing her, and telling her she could if she had a mind to, and charged her with being lazy.
In came her son Joe. "What's all this fuss?"
"O, it's Winnie says she's sick and can't do the washing this week."
"Sick! I'll see how sick she is," and he took up a billet of stove wood and commenced beating her over her head and shoulders, and swearing that he would give her something to be sick for. Mrs. Springer called my attention to the quarrel of Mrs. Shears with her cook before Joe Shears came in. Then said she, "Poor Aunt Winnie will catch it now, I'll warrant. There, just hear those blows; they sound like beating the table; he'll kill her." And table, stools, and tin-pans or pails made racket enough for the whole kitchen to be falling down. The struggle with a volley of oaths lasted a few minutes.
Mrs. Springer, up to boiling rage again, "Hear that; what devils they are; don't you believe Aunt Winnie will die? Why, I can't hold still." In as careless a manner as I could command I said, "We can do no good by saying any thing. You know what your son said the other night."
"I know it; but there isn't a particle of humanity about them. I feel as if I want to pitch into the whole Shears family." Soon all was quiet.
"I believe Aunt Winnie is dead, don't you?"
"I think not."