Dr. Lavendar looked at him with sudden attention. "Then what--" he
began, but a lean, freckled shadow in the dining-room doorway, spoke
up:
"Maybe he might 'a' made Marster Sam's Sam mad, suh, that night; maybe
he might 'a'. But that weren't no reason," said Simmons, in a
quivering voice, "for a boy to hit out and give his own grandfather a
lick. No, suh; it warn't. An' call him a liar!" Dr. Lavendar and
William King stared at each other and at the old man, in shocked
dismay. "His grandfather used words, maybe, onc't in a while," Simmons
mumbled on, "but they didn't mean no mo'n skim-milk. Don't I know?
He's damned me for forty years, but he'll go to heaven all the same.
The Lawd wouldn't hold it up agin' him. if a pore nigger wouldn't. If
He would, I'd as lief go to hell with Mr. Benjamin as any man I know.
Yes, suh, as I would with you yo'self, Dr. Lavendar. He was cream
kind; yes, he was! One o' them pore white-trash boys at Morison's
shanty Town, called me 'Ashcat' onc't; Mr. Wright he cotched him, and
licked him with his own hands, suh! An' he was as kind to Marster Sam
as if he was a baby. But Marster Sam hit him a lick. No, suh; it
weren't right--" Simmons rubbed the cuff of his sleeve over his eyes,
and the contents of the tilting decanter dribbled down the front of
his spotted old coat.
"Simmons," said Dr. Lavendar, "what had they been quarrelling about?"
But Simmons said glibly, that 'fore the Lawd, he didn't know.
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