“Yes’m.” Mis’ Lomux nodded her blond head solemnly. “He done broke his promise an’—an’ I don’t aim to live with him no more, ever.”
Polly Ann searched the flower-like face with something akin to pity. “You ain’t a’ carin,’ are you?” she asked in a whisper.
Mis’ Lomux’s denial was emphatic, but unconvincing. “I ’lowed all husbands was like pa,” she admitted sadly, “an’ that’s why I married Tobe so quick after he axed me. You see when pa died that throwed me an’ the chillun onto the county, with me not able to do fer ’em like I would a’ been if I hadn’t had the fever. What to do I didn’t know ’cause the chillun couldn’t work by their selves to do any good. When Tobe Lomux sent me word that he’d tak the hull lot of us if I’d have him, I was glad enough to marry him on that account, no matter what come. Not that I got ary thing agin Tobe—no one ain’t fer that matter,” she interrupted herself to say extenuatingly, “for he’s a real steady, honest person. Tobe’s high-tempered, though. Fust thing I knowed his folks come meddlin’ round talkin’ about him havin’ to do fer a’ passel o’ lazy chilluns an’ sech-like an’ it warn’t no time fore Tobe had put the chilluns to work like a gang o’ niggers. Me! Why, I jest couldn’t stand that not fer a minit! I up an’ told Tobe to hire his own niggers or quit us, ’cause them pore chillun warn’t goin’ to be nobody’s slaves. An’ he went”; she finished, growing very white and cold.
“He warn’t much or he wouldn’t a’ acted that way,” was Polly’s stern verdict.
The bride winced. “I aim to show ’im we can git on without him an’ his uppidy folks,” she retorted, with a flame of delicate color. “That’s why I come here, jest to make a livin’ fer us all till I can stouten up agin crap-making time next spring. By that time the two little boys’ll be big enough to help with the plowin’. Boys grows a heap in a year.”
“Did you say you brung the chillun along with you?” Polly wanted to know.
“Yes’m, we all set out together yesterday mornin’. Tain’t to say so dreadful fur—jest eighteen miles—but they ain’t used to travelin’ steady, an’ they give plum out early this mornin’, so I left ’em along with some folks while I come on ahead to git work.”
Polly Ann’s interest was of a keenly personal order, which admitted of vast concessions in favor of the second applicant for the already crowded ranks of mill laborers. She had turned the first comer away almost at sight, but Mis’ Lomux was different—her plaintive needs appealed to Polly Ann’s warm, starved little heart in a fashion quite unknown to her since her mother and sister had passed beyond her faithful care.
“Where’s your things?” Polly asked after a museful pause.
“We’re totin’ all we’ve got,” Mis’ Lomux answered frankly. “Pa didn’t have much of anythin’ when he died an’ I sold what little there was to git the chillun fit close to come down here in.”