Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/102

98 insulted by the evil-tongued old negress.

Sometimes Elizabeth would stop in her work and look at the wretched old creature huddled up in the corner of the kitchen which was sacred to her and the thought would come: "Oh, Lord, how long? How long?" It would be so easy to kill her, and there were moments when she felt that the killing of the hateful old woman would be no more of a crime than putting a gnawing rat out of existence.

Aunt Peachy had a strange scuttling glide and could slip herself through an inconceivably small crack. The old woman was feeble, her energy was almost gone, but at moments she would pull herself together and suddenly dart from her chair to investigate something that was going on in another part of the house. Curiosity was her ruling passion and very little happened at The Hedges without her knowledge. By some seemingly occult power she usually managed to know what was going on in the neighborhood, too. No colored person dared come on the place without bringing her some bit of gossip. She was a power with the lower class of her own people and held them in subjection by imposing on their superstitious fears. She was supposed to work charms, and a choice morsel of news, the more scandalous the