The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-12-08
CHAPTER XI.

Saturday. The dreadfulest day OF
all the dreadful seyenr'
Liza drew the honeycomb bedspread
farther mp about her ears and burrowed
deeper into the pillows II only she
could shut ont the sights and the sounds
that were waiting for her just outside
her bedroom door, shut them out for.
ever by that feeble device of burrowing
IN the pillows
The last day of the week was always
ushered in with frenzied energy by the
oyerseer 5 family. In Mrs. Martins Ian
guage Things was purity generally at
skies and sevens from sunup till sun
down Of Saturdays"
There was the weeks rations TO be
given out 10 over 100 field hands. More
than 100 times would Eben hold aloft
the hand scales, with their dangling
bait Of shining salt pork, and anxiously
scan the indicator TO make sure that no
fraction over the regulation four pounds
should pass into the keeping of each
laborer. More than 100 times Seth
would bend his brawny back to transfer
a peck of cornmeal from barrel be-
longing TO Ex-Governor Strong into
soiled bag belonging TO one of ex-Gov-
ernor Strong's slaves More than 100
times Charlie, presiding over the molas-
ses barrel and the tobacco box, would
supplement the necessaries of life, dis
pensed by his father and Seth, with the
only two Injuries craved by the docile
and unpampered horde.
Even then Liza could hear the field
hands defiling heavily past her win
dows, shod in their clumsy red brogans,
a stolid, patient gang, quite content to
bask with folded arms against the long,
sunny wall of the log smokehouse,
while Eben and the boys scampered
through their breakfast, swallowing
their coffee in those dreadfully audible
gulps which Liza found so trying.
There was the weeks accumulation
of disabled plows and decrepit wagons
to be braced into renewed usefulness at
the blacksmith's shop so very close to
her windows that she could feel the hot
breath of the furnace when she sat by
her work table. 1t was the labored
breathing of the huge bellows that had
aroused her TO consciousness of the
day, and all day long the quick, clangor-
GUS blows of the blacksmith hammer
would be falling with equal force upon
the anvil and upon her own quivering
nerves.
There was the weekly scrubbing of
the rough boarded galleries and the car
petless floors to he endured, with an all
day pervasion of soapsuds, moist Stat
terms and sloppy discomfort generally.
For one decorous day the house would
be free OF red clay imprints of heavy
boots and exult in Sabbath day clean
illness which was its only approach to
godliness.
She would make herself get up pres.
emily and assume her share of the days
sordid duties, with surface complais-
ance that easily passed muster for con
tent with the uncritical members of her
home circle.
With clumsy belief in the efficacy |
)f work as sovereign remedy for all Of |
\ girls crotchety fancies Eben had laid |
certain well defined obligations upon
his daughter soon after her return from |
school.
or course he and Becky had gone in
to consultation concerning the sort of |
work TO be expected of Liza.
Sissy mayse well take holt and do
her sheer, Becky. Too much time to
NOPE in amt gwine to make her forgit
her fine times at school nor her fine
Balt'mo frien S no quicker. And sittin
bout twiddlin her thum's amt goin to
make her any mo- in love with the
quarters nor the niggers. If we spilled
her by sendin her otter school, the quick
or we onspile her the better for her and
Ill concerned. Amt you agreed?'
Our Liza won't never be anything
out lady, Eben, if l do say it. And
the ain bit set up neither. The mad
Inn says she could hold her own any.
where's. | wisht the child would he
more frien'ly with Gabry's mother. 1t
'orter frets the old lady,
fro BE CONTINUED.
/