Dosia deliberated for a long while, then she answered quietly, but firmly:
“Well, then, Cousin, if all the time it must be, I can only say that is more than I can consent to—that, as her mother, I don’t feel called to part with my child.”
Miss Scarborough’s face flushed with sudden anger and resentment.
“But with all you have!” she exclaimed. “Nine children—nine!” Her voice trembled.
“Twelve I have,” corrected Dosia, quietly, “nine living and three dead,”—she lifted eyes and hand to a near-by hill-shoulder, where three small grave-houses were plainly visible,—“but not one to spare. I love the children God has give me, and I don’t aim ever to part with them till I have to. If things was different with us, I might feel it my duty to give up one; but my man is the workingest in this country, and being not far behind him myself, we prosper and have plenty, as you see. And now the women’s school has come, our young ones can get l’arning and still be under our admonition. No, Cousin Emily; I am greatly beholden to you for your kindness, I thank you from the deeps of my heart; but, as her mother, I cannot give up my child.”
Miss Scarborough had been leaning forward, body tense, face flushed, eyes feverishly bright. At Dosia’s final words she sank back in her chair, her face suddenly paled and aged, and her eyes sought the mountain-sides yesterday so glowing, but to-day dimmed as by a prophecy of death.
“It is ever the way,” she said at last slowly and bitterly. “‘From him that hath not shall be taken even that which he thinketh he hath.’ You women who have everything never consider those of us who have nothing.”
Dosia lifted startled eyes upon her kinswoman.
“Have nothing,” she repeated. “You!”
“Yes, I,” exclaimed Emily Scarborough. Her voice rang sharply.