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Don't let me hear another word out of you!" Unc' Zenas turned away and Wes, without a word or look at the two women, strode after him. Annie, shaken, caught Aunt Dolcey's arm. "Oh, Aunt Dolcey," she breathed, "what on earth was the matter?" Aunt Dolcey drew her into the kitchen. "Nuffin' but Marse Wes flyin' int' one his bad Dean temper fits, honey," said the old woman "No use to min' him.
The old woman considered. "It's all right ef you're all right," she pronounced at length. "But but what do you mean? And and look here Aunt Dolcey tell me what'd he do to that dog he had?" "What you know 'bout any dog?" "I don't know anything; but when I asked him why he didn't have a dog he was queer. It scared me." "Doan be skeered. They ain' nuffin' to be skeered of 'bout Marse Wes.
She did not know how she drove them; the lines were heavy in her hands, dragged at her arms. It was hot, and sweat rolled down her forehead. She wished vaguely that she had remembered to put on her sunbonnet. Behind her came Unc' Zenas and Aunt Dolcey, setting the sheaves into compact, well-capped stocks, little rough golden castles to dot this field of amazing conflict.
"Oh, I dunno granddad was high-tempered, and this fellow was sort of smart Aleck; give him some lip about something and dared him to touch him. And quick's a wink granddad punched him. At least that's the way I always heard it. Prob'ly they'd both been taking too much hard cider. Bring me another dumplin', Aunt Dolcey, please."
And there was about it the unmistakable atmosphere of home. "Old-fashioned but sort of swell, too," she decided. "Looks kind of like some of the parlours of those old houses on Charles Street that I used to rubber into in the evenings when the lights were lit and they'd forgot to put the blinds down." She liked the impassive almost Egyptian face of Aunt Dolcey, too.
"When yo' mad yo' kin 'complish de onpossible, en it doan' hurt yo'," replied Dolcey, thus going Kipling one better. But she watched Annie anxiously. The girl held out, though the jolting and shaking racked her excruciatingly and the pull of the reins seemed to drag the very flesh from her bones.
"Marster in hebben, ef I only had my stren'th!" muttered Zenas as she went on. "Angels b'arin' dat chile up wid deir wings," chanted Aunt Dolcey. Then, descending to more mundane matters, she added a delighted chuckle: "I knowed she'd rise en shine one dese days. Holler at Marse Wes she did, name him names, plenty. Yessuh laid him out!"
"You see dat big white scar on Marse Wes' lef' wris'? When he struck me I mahk him dere wid my hot flatiron. Am' no man eveh gwine lif' his hand to Dolcey, no matter who." A shrewd question came to Annie: "Aunt Dolcey, did he ever strike you again?" "No, ma'am, no 'ndeedy, he didn'. Wil' Marse Wes may be, but he ain' no crazy man. It's dat ole debbil in his nature, Miss Annie, honey.
In his father's face, despite the beard that was the fashion of those days, there was the same unmistakable pride and passion of Wes to-day. And his mother was a meek woman who could not live and endure the Dean temper. Well, Annie was not going to be meek. She thought with satisfaction of Aunt Dolcey and the hot flatiron.
She had just finished remaking the bed an old maple four-poster, the wood a soft and mellowed orange, fine and colourful against the white quilt, the lace-edged pillow slips. "I put on clean sheets," said Aunt Dolcey as Annie hesitated on the threshold. "Yes'm, I put on everything clean, an' the bes'. I know what's fitten. My chile, dish yer de third bridal bed I made up for wives of de Dean men."
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