Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/185

Rh "Lord love us, chil'! They don't ter say hate you," answered the old woman, with a note of sadness in her rich, soft voice. "You mustn't git no sich a notion."

"But they do! They hate me and Uncle Spot hates me. I think he hates me worst of all. He never says anything cross to me, but when he helps me to ham I have a feeling that he can't decide whether he'd rather give me a little bit, so little that I'll starve to death or so much that I'll make myself sick eating it. He usually gives me too much and when Aunt Evelyn tells him so he smiles a kind of hard smile. I think Uncle Spot is so handsome and I'd rather he'd like me than anybody but I don't know what to do to make him feel differently. He never even looks at me. I've been here three whole months and I don't know my aunts and uncle any better than I did the day I came."

"Does you try ter make 'em take a likin' ter you?"

"Ye-es—I try a little bit."

"Does yer love Miss Myra an' Miss Evelyn the way you wants 'em ter love you?" asked Aunt Pearly Gates.

"They hated me so from the very first, Aunt Pearly Gates. I didn't do anything to make them hate me. They just did it."