“And the taxes?”
“Of course.”
“And he can’t make ends meet?”
“No.”
“Well, if I was Sam, I’d injunct aginst any change that ’ud saddle me
with taxes and improvements.”
So I had made no change. And I had no answer for Coretta. She was still
talking.
“They’ll give us a good house at the mill, an’ furnish it too.”
“If you pay three times over in instalments.”
“When I git enough for my house, I mean to move back.”
“You’ll never get it paid for, and if you leave they’ll sell it to
somebody else. They count on getting pay from three families for every
set of furniture they put out,” I exaggerated stoutly.
“You needn’t talk like that, Mis’ Dolly,” she said, with her face all
protest. “I’ve got to go.”
“Very well.” I rose, and started out. Spying the hat that had cost me
so much thought, I said: “You didn’t like the hat?”
Her face became an eager pink with satisfaction.
“Shore I liked it! Everybody says it jest suits me. I want everything
_like that hat_!”
So my success had defeated me. She had been seduced by perfection. And
I reflected, as I walked home, that even if one ended in a morass, it
was something to follow the twinkling of a very little star. I had seen
in Coretta the flutter of a potentiality that would one day redeem life
from squalor and give the planet an unquenchable glow.
The first shock over, I could not stifle the thought that the loss of
Sam would be an excellent thing for me. I could replace him with a man
whose ideas of farming were not inherited from his great-grandfather:
some one who would not make me poorer every year, and keep my wits
exercised on the problem of his family’s support. And then, like the
breaking of a soft light, the thought stole upon me that I need never
again be roused from morning sleep to supply Coretta’s breakfast
omissions. Let her go her way. I would not expostulate; I would not
persuade; I would not even be sad. My pillow should be mine henceforth.
But I took care to avoid the children. This seemed necessary to the
anticipated enjoyment of that pillow. I kept away from Coretta’s cabin,
and when I saw bobbing curls nearing mine through the bushes, I had
sudden errands elsewhere.