Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/101

Rh give up active ministrations, but her place was in a corner of the kitchen behind the stove, where she sat from morning until night doing what she called "the haid work" of the household.

"Put mo' cracklin' in that there cawn pone!" she commanded Elizabeth, who was busily engaged in preparing dinner for her husband. "You's mo'n willin' ter starve my baby ter skin-an'-bone." Aunt Peachy always called Rolfe Bolling her baby, although he was a man almost seventy years old. "He wouldn't git 'nough suption in his victuals ter keep body an* soul together if it wa'n't fer his ol' mammy. You's sech a han' ter scrimpin' the grease."

Elizabeth said nothing, but put another spoonful of hog cracklings in the batter. She had long ago determined that there was no use in contending with either her husband or the old negress where small matters were concerned, but saved her energy for what she considered fundamentals, such as the rearing and educating of her children.

Aunt Peachy did not hesitate to twit her mistress with the fact that she belonged to the poor white class, and such was the old woman's influence over Rolfe Bolling that he had been known to sit by and laugh while his wife was being