Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/262

258 nature. She was not sensitive like her mother and Philip and her father's habits and appearance formerly did not seem to mortify her as they had the others. She had carelessly explained matters at The Hedges to Rebecca when she first began to go there by saying:

"Don't mind Mam' Peachy and Father! They are both kind of nutty!"

But now that Spottswood Taylor had begun to come to her home the girl had become very sensitive about the conditions there. When she broke out with "I can't and won't stand it!" more than usual had occurred to mortify her. Not only had her father come into the sitting room in his stocking feet smelling vilely of the mountain whisky but Mam' Peachy and her son, Old Abe, had followed him, both of them drank, laughing loudly and coarsely.

Mam' Peachy had leered impertinently into the face of the caller and said: "Yi! Yi! Mill House folk a callin' on they betters! I mind the time when yo' great gran'pap thought hissed uplif'ed when we-alls 'lowed him ter grin' us's cawn. He wa' the one what got in he haid ter start the hub fact'ry an' come here tryin' ter buy lan' on our side er the ribber. We wouldn't sell ter him! Naw! Not us-all! We done tol' him we'd rent a lil' strip ter him, jes fer 'commerda-