“How dared you!” she exclaimed; “oh, that I could punish you as you deserve!”
The girl smiled and slowly drew her needle through the cloth in her lap.
“Go out to Lucas,” commanded Helen. “Go!”
The girl drew herself up, and her face took on an expression of sullen defiance. It seemed for an instant that she would not obey. She clenched her hands, and I heard her teeth grate together. But she hesitated only a moment, then went slowly out of the room. Presently she passed by the window, pushing a heavy barrow full of earth. Lucas, the gardener, followed, carrying a long gad. In a minute or two they passed again, going in the same direction, and afterward again and again. The girl was pushing the barrow around and around the house.
“That is the heaviest and most menial employment I can devise for her,” said Helen; “I wish there were something worse. She grows more impudent every day, but this is the first time she has dared to exert her snaky power upon a white person in my presence. How did you feel while you were under that spell?”
“Now, Helen, for heaven’s sake don’t imagine——”
“I imagine nothing,” she interrupted, in a low voice. “I know that girl. She can do strange things. If ever a human creature was possessed of a devil, she is.”
“Why, Helen!”
She went on without heeding my astonishment. “Every negro on the plantation, except Lucas, is mortally afraid of her. My birds cower in a corner of their cage if she approaches them, the gentlest horse we have will rear and kick at sight of her, and if she goes into the poultry-yard the hens cover up their chicks as if night had come. She has affected others as she did you. She has done worse. When I first came here, she was given to me for a maid; but, not liking her, I took a little mulatto girl who was bright and smart then, but who is now idiotic through fear of Asenath.”
I did not think it best to dispute with Helen, knowing her well enough to be sure that any argument I could adduce against her belief she had already weighed and found wanting. She was not a superstitious woman, nor a hasty one, but one whose very mistakes deserved respect, since she always took that course of action which she believed to be wisest and best, even if it were to her own disadvantage. I simply asked: “Why do you not get rid of her?”