wondering why Providence had inflicted upon her a weak digestion.
Mr. Wrenn also wondered why, sympathetically, but Mrs. Zapp was
too conscientiously dolorous to be much cheered by the sympathy
of a nigger-lovin' Yankee, who couldn't appreciate the subtle
sorrows of a Zapp of Zapp's Bog, allied to all the First Families
of Virginia.

Mr. Wrenn did nothing more presumptuous than sit still, in the
stuffy furniture-crowded basement room, which smelled of dead
food and deader pride in a race that had never existed. He sat
still because the chair was broken. It had been broken now for
four years.

For the hundred and twenty-ninth time in those years Mrs. Zapp
said, in her rich corruption of Southern negro dialect, which
can only be indicated here, "Ah been meaning to get that chair
mended, Mist' Wrenn." He looked gratified and gazed upon the
crayon enlargements of Lee Theresa, the older Zapp daughter (who
was forewoman in a factory), and of Godiva. Godiva Zapp was
usually called "Goaty," and many times a day was she called by
Mrs. Zapp. A tamed child drudge was Goaty, with adenoids, which
Mrs. Zapp had been meanin' to have removed, and which she would
continue to have benevolent meanin's about till it should be too
late, and she should discover that Providence never would let
Goaty go to school.

"Yes, Mist' Wrenn, Ah told Goaty she was to see the man about
getting that chair fixed, but she nev' does nothing Ah tell her."

In the kitchen was the noise of Goaty, ungovernable Goaty, aged