The Voice of the People by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
page 94 of 433 (21%)
page 94 of 433 (21%)
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relieved by the interruption. "The things air all washed up, ain't they,
pa?" Amos Burr scowled heavily upon the boy's head, his phlegmatic nature goaded into resentment by his wife's ill-temper and the lamentations of Jubal. "I don't reckon you expect supper to keep waitin' till breakfast," he said. "You've given your ma trouble enough 'thout makin' her do an extra washin' up on your o'count. You've gone clean crazy sence you've been loafin' round with them Battles. I don't see as you air much o'count, nohow." Nicholas raised his eyes to his father's face and looked at him fixedly. For a moment he did not speak, and then he said slowly: "I'm as good as a hand to you." He was thinking doggedly that he had never hated any one so much as he hated his own father, and that he liked the sensation. He wished he could do him some real harm--hit him hard enough to hurt or make the peanuts rot in the ground. He should like also to choke Jubal, who never left off yelling. Amos Burr spat a mouthful of tobacco juice through the open window, flinching before the boy's steady glance. He was a mild-natured man at best, whose chief sin was his softness. It would not have entered his slow-witted head to protest against the accusations of his wife. When they stung him into revolt he revolted in the opposite direction. |
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