niggers all right, I'll admit," said he. "But, now, supposin' it had been a white man?"

   "Well, supposing it was?"

   "We don't need to suppose. There was the same thing happened to a white family. Wife got killed—left three children."

   "Oh, you mean that accident down at Shelby?"

   "Yes, Mrs. Something-or-other, she was. Well, sir, damn me, if that infernal claim agent didn't have the face to offer fifteen dollars for her, too."

   "Looks almost like he played a fifteen-dollar limit all the time, doesn't it?" said the visitor.

   "It certainly does. It ain't right."

   "Well, now, I heard about that woman. She was a tall, thin creature, with no liver left at all, and her chills came three times a week. She wouldn't work; she was red-headed and had only one straight eye; and as for a tongue—well, I only hope, Colonel Blount, that you and I will never have a chance to meet anything like that. Of course, I know she was killed. Her husband just hated her before she died, but blame

    me

   , just as soon as she was

    dead

   , he loved her more than if she was his sweetheart all over again. Now, that's how it goes. Say, I want to tell you, Colonel Blount, this road is plumb beneficent, if only for the fact that it develops human affection the way it does. Fifteen dollars! Why, I tell you, sir, fifteen dollars was

    more

   than enough for that woman." He turned indignantly on the board-pile.

   "I reckon," said Colonel Blount, "that you would say that about my neighbor Jim Bowles' cow?"

   "Certainly. I know about that cow, too. She was twenty years old and on her last legs. Road kills her, and all at once she becomes a dream of heifer loveliness.

    I

   know."

 Prev. P 17/201 next