Mell, wrought up to the highest pitch of exasperation, made no reply beyond looking daggers and gnashing her teeth.
“Not your old dad, Mell?”
“No, father; I don’t want you damned either. But what did you come down here for? What did you call him a cattle dealer for? What did you talk about such horrid, nasty, disgusting things, for? Oh! I am mortified almost to death.”
“I sorter reckon’d yer’d hate it worser’n pisen,” chuckled the old farmer; “but er good dose of pisen is jess what some folks needs bad. Come, come, Mell, hold your horses! It’s your eddicashun what’s er botherin’ of yer!”
“I wish to God I had no education!” exclaimed Mell, passionately. “It’s turned out to be the worst thing I ever did do, to get an education! It has made me unhappy ever since I came home and found things so different from what they ought to be. How poor and mean a home it is! How lowly its surroundings, how rude its ways and how I am degraded and fettered and hampered and looked down upon for things beyond my control!”
“I knows—I knows”—answered her old father, with that suspicious thrill-in-the-voice of a subjugated parent. “It’s yo’ ignerront ole daddy an’ yo’ hard-workin’ ole mammy what’s er hamperin’ ye! We ain’t got no loving little Mell, no longer, to say, Popsy and Mamsy, so cute, but only er fine young miss, who minces out ‘father’ and ‘mother’ so gran’, an’ can’t hardly abide us, the mammy what bare her, and the daddy what give her bein’. I knows. Ef it warnt fer us, ye’d be the ekill of the finess’ lady in the lan’, wouldn’t ye, Mell? Wall, ye kin be, my darter, in spite o’ us, ef you play yo’ kerds rite. You’se got es big er forshun es Miss Rutlan’—bigger, I believe. Hern’s in her pockit, yourn’s in yo’ phiz. But, arter all, a gal’s purty face don’t ’mount ter mor’n one row er pins, ef she ain’t got no brains to hope it erlong. Play yo’ purty face, Mell; play her heavy, but back her strong wid gumshun! Then you’ll git ter be er gran’ lady o’ fashion, in spite o’ yer ugly ole dad an’ common ole mammy. Now, I wants ye ter tell me somethin’ ’bout dat young jackanapes. What’s his bizniss? What is he?”
“A perfect gentleman!”
“Sartingly—sartingly. I seed dat, as soon es I sot my eyes on ’im, but what sorter man? My ole dad ust ter say, ’one fust-rate man could knock inter blue blazes er whole cart load er gentlemin’. I’ll tell yer fer er fack, er gentlemin ain’t nothin’ nohow, but er man wid his dirty spots whitewasht. But what air the import er this one’s intentions respectin’ of ye?”
Whatever her ideas on this point, the girl was too modest to express them.
“Wall, maybe you kin tell me the dispersition of your own min’ regardin’ him?”