Bud looked sheepishly around--he tried even to run, but Jud Carpenter held him fast. She shook her finger in his face. "I heard you say it, Bud Billins, you know I did an' I busted a plate over yo' head."

"But, my dear Madam," said Kingsley, "that was no reason to treat him so badly."

"Oh, it wa'nt?" she shrieked--"to tattle-tale to the house-cat about yo' own spliced an' wedded wife? In her own home an' yard--her that you've sworn to love an' cherish agin bed an' board--ter call her a heifer?"

She slipped her hand under her ap.r.o.n and produced a deadly looking blue plate of thick cheap ware. Her eyes blazed, her voice became husky with anger.

"An' you don't think that was nothin'?" she shrieked.

"You don't understand me, my dear Madam," said Kingsley quickly. "I meant that it was no reason why you should continue to treat him so after he has suffered and is sorry. Of course you have got to control Bud."

She softened and went on.

"Wal it was mighty nigh a year befo' Bud paid any mo' 'tention to the cat. The full moon quit 'fectin' him--he even quit eatin' biscuits.

Then the spell commenced to come onct a year an' he cu'dn't pa.s.s over blackberry winter to save his life. Mind you he never sed anything to me about it, but one day he ups an' gits choked on a chicken gizzerd an' coughs an' wheezes an' goes on so like a fool that I ups with the cheer an' comes down on his head a-thinkin' I'd make him cough it up.

I mout a bin a little riled an' hit harder'n I orter, but I didn't mean anything by it, an' he did cough it up on my clean floor, an'

I'm willin' to say agin' I was a little hasty, that's true, in callin' him a lop-sided son of a pigeon-toed monkey, for Bud riled me mighty. But what you reckin he done?"

She shook her finger in his face again. Bud tried to run again.

"You kno' you done it, Bud Billins--I followed you an' listened when you tuck up the cat an' you whispered in the cat's year that your spliced an' wedded wife was a--a--_she devil_!"

"It tuck two plates that time, Mister Kingsley--that's the time Bud didn't draw no pay fur two weeks.

"Wal, that was over a year ago, an' Bud he's been a behavin' mighty well, untwell this mornin'. It's true he didn't say much, but he sed 'nuff fur me to see ther spell was acomin' on an' I'd better bust it up befo' it got into his blood an' sot 'im to cultivate the company of the cat. I seed I had to check the disease afore it got too strong, fur I seed Bud was tryin' honestly to taper off with them spells an' shake with the cat if he cu'd, so when he kinder snorted a little this mornin' because he didn't have but one aig an' then kinder began to look aroun' as if he was thinkin' of mice, I busted a saucer over his head an' fotched 'im too, grateful la'k an' happy, to be hisse'f agin. I think he's nearly c'wored an' I'm mighty glad you is, Bud Billins, fur it's costin' a lot of mighty good crockery to c'wore you.

"Now you all jes' lem'me 'lone, Mister Kingsley--lem'me manage Bud.

He's slo' mouthed as I'm tellin' you, but he's gittin' over them spells an' I'm gwinter c'wore him if I hafter go into the queensware bus'ness on my own hook. Now, Bud Billins, you jes' go in there now an' go to tendin' to that slubbin' machine, an' don't you so much as look at a cat twixt now an' next Christmas."

Bud needed no further admonition. He bolted for the door and was soon silently at work.

CHAPTER XVIII

SAMANTHA CAREWE

But Jud Carpenter did not finish his work by starting the slubbing machine. Samantha Carewe, one of the main loom women, was absent.

Going over to her cottage, he was told by her mother, a glinty-eyed, shrewd looking, hard featured woman--that Samantha was "mighty nigh dead."

"Oh, she's mighty nigh dead, is she," said Jud with a tinge of sarcasm--"I've heurn of her bein' mighty nigh dead befo'. Well, I wanter see her."

The mother looked at him sourly, but barred the doorway with her form. Jud fixed his hard cunning eyes on her.

"Cyant see her; I tell you--she's mighty po'ly."

"Well, cyant you go an' tell her that Mister Jud Cyarpenter is here an' 'ud like to kno' if he can be of any sarvice to her in orderin'

her burial robe an' coffin, or takin' her last will an' testerment."

With that he pushed himself in the doorway, rudely brushing the woman aside. "Now lem'me see that gyrl--" he added sternly--"that loom is got to run or you will starve, an' if she's sick I want to kno' it.

I've seed her have the toe-ache befo'."

The door of the room in which Samantha lay was open, and in plain view of the hall she lay with a look of pain, feigned or real, on her face. She was a woman past forty--a spinster truly--who had been in the mill since it was first started, and, as she came from a South Carolina mill to the Acme, had, in fact, been in a cotton mill, as she said--"all her life." For she could not remember when, as a child even, she had not worked in one.

Her chest was sunken, her shoulders stooped, her whole form corded and knotted with the fight against machinery. Her skin, bronzed and sallow, looked not unlike the hard, fine wood-work of the loom, oiled with constant use.

Jud walked in unceremoniously.

"What ails you, Samanthy?" he asked, with feigned kindness.

"Oh, I dunno, Jud, but I've got a powerful hurtin' in my innards."

"The hurtin' was so bad," said her mother, "that I had to put a hot rock on her stomach, last night."

She motioned to a stone lying on the hearth. Jud glanced at it--its size staggered him.

"Good Lord! an' you say you had that thing on her stomach? Why didn't you send her up to the mill an' let us lay a hot steam engine on her?"

"What you been eatin', Samanthy?" he asked suddenly.

"Nuthin', Jud--I aint got no appet.i.te at all!"

"No, she aint eat a blessed thing, hardly, to-day," said her mother--"jes' seemed to have lost her appet.i.te from a to izzard."

"I wish the store'd keep wild cherry bark and whiskey--somethin' to make us eat. We cyant work unless we can eat," said Samantha, woefully.

"Great Scott," said Jud, "what we want to do is to keep you folks from eatin' so much. Lem'me see," he added after a pause, as if still thinking he'd get to the source of her trouble--"Yistidday was Sunday--you didn't have to work--now what did you eat for breakfast?"

"Nothin'--oh, I aint got no appet.i.te at all"--whined Miss Samantha.

"Well, what did you eat--I wanter find out what ails you?"

"Well, lem'me see," said Miss Samantha, counting on her fingers--"a biled mackrel, some fried bacon, two pones of corn bread--kinder forced it down."

"Ur-huh--" said Jud, thoughtfully--"of course you had to drink, too."

"Yes"--whined Miss Samantha woefully--"two gla.s.ses of b.u.t.termilk."

Jud elevated his eyebrows "An' for dinner?"

"O, Lor'. Jes' cu'dn't eat nothin' fur dinner," she wailed. "If the Company'd only get some cherry bark an' whiskey"--

"At dinner," said Mrs Carewe, stroking her chin--"we had some sour-kraut--she eat right pe'rtly of that--kinder seemed lak a appetizer to her. She mixed it with biled cabbage an' et right pe'rtly of it."

"An' some mo' b.u.t.termilk--it kinder cools my stomach," whined Miss Samantha. "An' hog-jowl, an' corn-bread--anything else Maw?"