A Woman Named Smith | Page 9

yaller dawg, I'd a did it right den, so 's I
could run twict faster 'n I done!--Whichin' please, ma'ams, lemme take
you-all ter de hotel."
When he saw that he couldn't prevail upon us to do so, he left us
regretfully, shaking his head. He would come back early in the morning
to do anything we might require. But he wouldn't stay overnight in

Hynds House for any consideration. No negro in the county would.
"Alicia," said I, when we had had a cup of tea made over our spirit
lamp, and firelight and lamplight made the place less depressing and
eerie, "Alicia, that terrible old woman has played me, like an ace up her
sleeve, against her neighbors and her family. She has left me a house
that needs everything done to it except to burn it down and rebuild it,
and a garden that will have to be cleared out with dynamite. And she
has seen to it that I have the preconceived prejudice of all Hyndsville."
Alicia's pretty, soft lips closed firmly.
"Here we are and here we stay!" she said determinedly. "Nobody's been
disinherited to make room for us. Sophy, in all our lives we have never
had a chance to make a real home. Well, then, Hynds House is our
chance, and I'd just like to see anybody take it away from us!"
"Up, Guards, and at 'em!" said I, smiling at her tone. I am slower than
she, but even more stubborn, as the English are.
"Tell your admiral that if he gets in my way I will blow his ships out of
the water!" said Alicia, gallantly.
But when we went up-stairs, we took good care to lock our door, and
bolt it, too. Alicia said her prayers kneeling by the gate-legged table,
snuggled into bed between the clean sheets we had brought with us,
tucked a china dog under her chin, and went to sleep like the child that
she was. I said the Shepherd's Psalm and went to sleep, too.
I was awakened suddenly, and found myself sitting up in bed, staring
wildly about the strange room. The house was breathlessly still. My
heart pounded against my ribs, the blood beat in my ears. I was
oppressed with a nameless terror, an anguished sense that something
had happened, something irremediable. The feeling was so strong that
my throat closed chokingly.
I am particular in thus setting it down, because it was an experience
that all of us under that roof had to undergo. You had to fight it, shut

your mind against it, oppose your will to it like a stone wall, refuse to
let it master you. Then, as if defeated, it would go as suddenly, as
inexplicably, as it had come.
That's what I did then, more by instinct than reason. But I was
exhausted when I finally got back to sleep.

CHAPTER III
THE DEAR LITTLE GOD!
When we went over Hynds House the next morning and took stock, I
began to entertain very, very peculiar feelings toward Great-Aunt
Sophronisba Scarlett, who, it would appear, had given me a white
elephant which I could neither hire out for its keep, nor yet sell out of
hand. I had to live in Hynds House, and Hynds House as it stood wasn't
to be lived in.
The rain had ceased, and from the outside jungle came innumerable
calls of birds, and fresh and woodsy odors; but the whole aspect of the
place was grim and forbidding. At the back, where there wasn't such an
overgrowth, the lane had been closed, barricaded with barbed-wire
entanglements, and fairly bristled with thistles and "No Trespassing"
signs.
"All this house needs is a mortuary tablet set up over the front door."
But Alicia demurred.
"I'm not a bit disheartened," she declared stoutly. "There's just one
thing to be done to this house--first make it beautiful, and then make it
pay. It can be done. It's going to be done. It's got to be done. And when
it's done--we'll have a home. Vision it as it's going to be,
Sophy--rosewood and mahogany and walnut, old brass and china and
prints and portraits, the sort of things we've only been able to dream of
up to now. Why, this house has been waiting for us! We were born to

come here and make it over: it's our house!" Alicia, has the gay
courage of the Irish.
The heavy iron knocker on the front door resounded clamorously.
"Uncle Adam thinks we've been ha'nted out of existence, and he's
hammering to wake the dead," said I.
But it wasn't Uncle Adam to whom we opened the door. An enormous,
square-shouldered man stood there, looking from me to Alicia with
bright, keen blue eyes behind glasses. He was so big,