At Fault Read Online Free

a
Sunday free of disturbing doubts concerning the future of her
undertaking. But who may know what the morrow will bring forth? Cynthy
had been "tuck sick in de night." So ran the statement of the wee
pickaninny who appeared at Melicent's gate many hours later than
morning coffee time: delivering his message in a high voice of
complaint, and disappearing like a vision without further word.
    Uncle Hiram, then called to the breach, had staked his patriarchal
honor on the appearance of his niece Suze on Tuesday. Melicent and
Thérèse meeting Suze some days later in a field path, asked the cause
of her bad faith. The girl showed them all the white teeth which
nature had lavished on her, saying with the best natured laugh in the
world: "I don' know how come I didn' git dere Chewsday like I
promise."
    If the ladies were not disposed to consider that an all-sufficient
reason, so much the worse, for Suze had no other to offer.
    From Mose's wife, Minervy, better things might have been expected. But
after a solemn engagement to take charge of Melicent's kitchen on
Wednesday, the dusky matron suddenly awoke to the need of "holpin'
Mose hoe out dat co'n in the stiff lan."
    Thérèse, seeing that the girl was really eager to play in the brief
role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative,
to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not
without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose
position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little
brown legged tot Mandy, much given to falling asleep in the sun, when
not chasing venturesome poultry off forbidden ground, or stirring
gentle breezes with an enormous palm leaf fan about her mistress
during that lady's after dinner nap.
    When pressed to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the
negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being
interviewed on the front veranda by Thérèse and Melicent, spoke out.
    "Dey 'low 'roun' yere, dat you's mean to de black folks, ma'am: dat
what dey says—I don' know me."
    "Mean," cried Melicent, amazed, "in what way, pray?"
    "Oh, all sort o' ways," he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness;
determined to go through with the ordeal.
    "Dey 'low you wants to cut de little gals' plaits off, an' sich—I
don' know me."
    "Do you suppose, Nathan," said Thérèse attempting but poorly to hide
her amusement at Melicent's look of dismay, "that Miss Hosmer would
bother herself with darkies' plaits?"
    "Dat's w'at I tink m'sef. Anyways, I'll sen' Ar'minty 'roun'
to-morrow, sho."
    Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day
playfully seized one of the small Mandy's bristling plaits, daintily
between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the
scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there
was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the
negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she
offered. Thérèse soon enlightened her with the information that the
negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech,
manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was
given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this
boycott, as Thérèse recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew
to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies' hands.
    Needless to say, Araminty never appeared.
    Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme's generous
hospitality; and one of that lady's many supernumeraries was detailed
each morning to "do up" Miss Melicent's rooms, but not without the
previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T'rèse's
system.
    Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at
Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these
misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience
with his mill hands.
    It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to