It"--her
voice sank almost to a whisper--"It's Pap Himes."
The old man thrust her back and stared again.
"Gid--Gideon Himes?" he exclaimed incredulously. "Why, the man's old
enough to be her grand-daddy, let alone her father. Gid Himes--the old--
What in the name of--? Johnnie--and you think Himes is mixed up with
this young man that's been laywaid--him and Buckheath? Lord, what _is_
all this business?"
"When Shade found I wouldn't have him," Johnnie began resolutely at the
beginning, "he got Pap Himes to take him to board so that he could
always be at me, tormenting me about it. I don't know what he and Pap
Himes had between them; but something--that I'm sure of. And after the
old man went up and married mother, it was worse. He put the children in
the mill and worked them almost to death; even--even Deanie," she choked
back a sob. "And Shade as good as told me he could make Pap Himes stop
it any time I'd promise to marry him. Something they were pulling
together over. Maybe it was the silver mine."
"The silver mine!" echoed old Pros. "That's it. Gid thought I was likely
to die, and the mine would come to your mother. Not but what he'd be
glad enough to get Laurelly--but that's what put it in his head. An' Gid
Himes is married to my little Laurelly, an' been abusin' the children!
Lord, hit don't pay for a man to go crazy.
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