Page:Folks from Dixie (1898).pdf/230

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

FOLKS FROM DIXIE

you say that if you ever met him again in this world you 'd—"

"Kill him!" burst forth the man; and all the old, gentle look had gone out of his face, and there was nothing but fierceness and bitterness there, as his mind went back to his many wrongs.

"Go on away from the house, 'Lizy," he said hoarsely; "if anything happens, I do' want you an' the childern around."

"I do' want you to kill him, Nelse, so you'll git into trouble; but jes' give him one good whippin' for those he used to give you."

"Go on away from the house;" and the man's lips were tightly closed. She threw a thin shawl over her head and went out.

As soon as she had gone Nelse's intense feeling got the better of him, and, falling down with his face in a chair, he cried, in the language which the Sunday sermons had taught him, "Lord, Lord, thou hast delivered mine enemy into my hands!"

But it was not a prayer; it was rather a cry of anger and anguish from an overburdened heart. He rose, with the same hard gleam in his eyes, and went back toward the kitchen.

198