And as the drink demon riz up in Ellick’s crazy brain, and grew more clamorous in its demands, and he weaker to contend aginst it, Ellick sold all of the household stuff he could git holt of to appease this dretful power that had got holt of him, body and soul.
Annie took in all the work she could do, did washin’ for the neighbors, who ust to envy her her happiness and prosperity—rubbed and hung out the heavy garments with tremblin’ fingers—sewed with her achin’ head a-bendin’ over the long seams, and her tear-filled eyes dimmed with the pain of unavailin’ agony.
But heartaches and abuse made her weak form weaker and weaker, and then there wuz but little work to do, if she had been as strong as Sampson; so, bein’ fairly drove to it by Agony, and Fear, and Starvation, them three furies a-drivin’ her, as you may say, harnessed up three abreast behind her, a-goadin’ her weak, cowerin’ form with their fire-tipped lashes, she appealed to the brother-in-law.
She told him, what he knew before, that she and little Robbie were starvin’, and she wuz afraid of her life, and she urged him to not sell Ellick any more of the poison that wuz a-destroyin’ him.
He wuz to meetin’ when she went. He wuz dretful particular about his religious observances.
No Hindoos wuz ever stricter about burnin’ their widders on the funeral pyre of the departed than he wuz a-follerin’ up what he called his religion.
(Religion, sweet, pure sperit, how could she stand it, to have him a-burnin’ his incense in front of her? But, then, she has had to stand a good deal in this old world, and has to yet.)
But, as I wuz a-sayin’, there never wuz a Pharisee in old or modern times that went ahead of him in cleanin’ the outside of his platters and religious deep dishes, and makin’ broad the border of his phylakricy. Why, his phylakricy wuz broader and deeper than you have any idee on.
But inside of his platters and deep dishes wuz dead men’s bones!
More’n one quarrel, riz up out of his accursed brandy, had led to bloodshed, besides achin’ and broken hearts without number, and ruined souls and lives.