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 spend a-strippin'. An' then along about Christmas Luke'll haul the terbaccer off to Lexington an' sell it an' put the money in his pocket an' I won't never see a dollar of it. An' if I even want a few cents to buy me calico for a, I gotta most go daown on my knees an' beg for it. I work jes as hard in the crop as he does. An' then what does he do while I cook an' wash dishes an' clean the house an' do the washin' an' tend the chickens an' turkeys? He feeds an' tends the hosses. That's what he's got to do outside of his crop. He hain't never picked a goose in his life; an' he wouldn't pick one if they died for lack o' pickin'. He says pickin' geese is wimmin's work. I tell you what I'm a-goin' to do. Nex' summer I ain't a-goin' to touch hand to his corn ner his durn terbaccer crop. If pickin' geese is wimmin's work, settin' an' hoein' terbaccer is man's work, an' he kin do it hisse'f 'ithout any he'p from me. I'm jes sick an' tired of slavin' like a mule an' gittin' nothin' fer it."

She paused on the brink of tears. A large tortoise shell cat arched her back and rubbed herself against the legs of her mistress, then reached up her head and sniffed delicately at the goose.

"An' then," she went on in the next breath, "with all his huntin' foxes most every night an' keepin' all them lazy haounds a-slinkin' raound the place an' a-eatin' up the feed the chickens otta have, he can't keep the foxes from gittin' my geese. Las' night when I went to ketch 'em up to coop 'em I found my biggest goose was missin'. An' this mornin' when I was a-lookin' up my turkeys, sure nuf I come on the feathers jes over that little hill yonder. I was that vexed an' disgusted. Think of it! Him an' all his durn haounds together ain't as smart as one fox! An' what's he a-doin' naow, while I'm a-slavin' an' a-sweatin' over these geese? He's a-standin' yonder by the shed a-chawin' terbaccer an' a-gassin' with young Bob Crupper. He's been there in that one spot this good two hours, an' he'll be there like enough till chore time to-night. Men makes me sick; always a-sunnin' theirselves around the barnyard like flies on a dunghill."