Scarlet Sister Mary

eyes were fixed on the red-hot coals, and Andrew, now fairly started, talked on and on in a vexed, aggrieved tone. He had never mistreated Doll in his life. Every year God sent when all the crops were gathered he sent her to town on the boat and let her get herself and all the children, his and hers, some clothes. She always had shoes to wear on Sundays. She always had a nice hat. He never had stinted her. He made money, but she spent it as freely as water. He had never been hard on her in any way. He provided well for her and encouraged her to pleasure herself as much as any Christian woman ought to do. He never said a word when she stayed all day at a quilting or when she marched around the fire half the night at birthnight suppers.

Andrew paused for breath and Mary put in, “You sho has been a good husband, Cousin. Everybody on de whole plantation knows dat. I ever did say Doll is de luckiest ’oman I ever seen. E got de finest man ever was for a husband, a lot o nice chillen, a good home, an’ clothes, an’ plenty to eat. What more could heart wish? Doll must be gone out e head if e ain’ satisfy wid all dat.”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed at the last words and he shook his head. Doll was not satisfied. That was the whole trouble. Nobody could please her. The angel Gabriel could not please her. Instead of being satisfied with being a high-up church member and a deacon’s wife, Doll was raven to join the Bury-league. She talked about it day and night.

“Doll is spoiled. You done too much for em, Cousin. Too much. It don’ pay to let a woman run over you. If you do, before long Doll will stop an’ wipe e feet on you.”

Andrew nodded slowly. Mary was right. She knew Doll, but he was going to teach Doll a lesson. She’d find out he was no feeble fool to run after her and be a slave for her. She could stay right where she was the rest of her days before he’d ever go one step to fetch her home.

“Whe e is, Cousin? Whe Doll dey? Fo Gawd’s sake, you don’ mean dat fool ’oman is gone an’ left you! How-come so?”

Andrew tilted his hat a bit farther back and squared himself with his feet farther apart to tell Mary about the whole thing. Doll never could understand that men and women are different creatures. God made them different at the very start. He did not make men to sit down at home and patch and sew and quilt. Mary smiled. Of course, God didn’t make men so, and she for one was glad of it. She never could stand to have a man hanging around the house. Men had business to be out working and doing what men were meant to do.

Andrew said Doll couldn’t see it that way, not that he ever craved running around day or night. When the crops were growing and the grass growing with them, he stayed right in the field behind his plow keeping them clean. But when his potatoes were all dug and banked, his peas picked, his corn gathered and put in the barn, his cane ground and made into molasses, he got tired sitting at home every night from first dark until time to go to bed with nobody to talk to but Doll and the children. The nights were too long. One winter night was as long as three June nights.

Doll could sleep from first dark until sunrise, but if he went to bed early he couldn’t sleep until daybreak to save his life. He twisted and turned like a worm in hot ashes and his bones pure hurt from lying in bed so long. Sometimes he walked out at night and visited the neighbors, but here lately Doll began sticking out her mouth and complaining of being lonesome. Last night she got so vexed she wouldn’t talk to him at all. She just swelled up like a toadfish and sat and looked at the fire without cracking her teeth.

This morning she looked so mean and cross he asked her what ailed her. At first she would not answer him, but after a while she said she was tired of the way he ran around at night. What she said was not so bad as the way she said it. Doll knew he did not run around at night. She was vexed because he would not go buy her an automobile. She rode in one last summer when she went to town on the excursion and she had not given him any peace since then. The ugly, old, worn-out, secondhand thing would cost as much as his whole share-crop of cotton would make in five years. It was fit for nothing but to run into the first ditch it saw and break her neck or her insides.

Money burned Doll. With her, it was easy come, easy go, as if his field still made a bale of cotton to the acre. Doll wanted to spend every cent instead of burying some in the ground to keep for hard times.

Mary listened thoughtfully. Doll was wrong. God did not intend for people to act so. He gave them feet and the ground to walk on. If they get in a hurry or have a long distance to go, He has provided mules and oxen to hitch to wagons and buggies. People ought to stand still and think.

“And pray, too,” Andrew added solemnly. “Fo times is changed, an’ de change ain’ fo de better. Looka de Bury-league. De plantation ain’ de same since it come here.”

“You right, Cousin?”

Andrew drew a deep sigh. Friends used to look after one another on the plantation. If you got sick your friends came and sat up with you and rubbed you; Daddy