The older sister looked around the table, at Hertha's sad face, at Tom's sullen one, at her mother's tears, and for a moment felt the severity of the coming catastrophe; but for a moment only. Emotion soon gave place to reasoned thought.
"Tom has a right to an education," she said solemnly. "If he doesn't learn a trade at school he never will learn one, and we shouldn't keep him here no matter how much we shall need him and miss him."
Aunt Maggie rose. "You don' know what it means," she said, "to part a mudder f'om her only son." Her rich voice sounded with a certain finality as though, while appreciating Ellen's power, she wished her to understand her responsibility. "You's taken a deal upon you'self." And she left her children and went into her room.
Tom and Hertha slipped out of doors. In time of trouble they always got away from the house, and now in silence they made their way to the river.
It was a hot night in late September with a wind blowing from the east. In the summer, unless held home by some imperative need, all the people of the plantation, black and white, came in the evening to the wharf to taste the fresh breeze. But the wharf was long and seclusion possible, so the two slipped to their favorite place at the far end, and leaning against a post dangled their feet over the water.
"If it would do any good," Tom said morosely, "I'd run away."
Hertha laughed.
"Ellen thinks she can boss the whole of us," he went on, "but the time am coming when she can't boss me."
"'Is,' Tom."
"Yes, ma'am."