if she could bear it if he turned on her.

She was working in the spring house mixing cream with curd for cottage
cheese, very busy and anxious over it, for this was her first essay
alone, when she heard Wes again in anger. She dropped her spoon, but
did not go to look, only concentrated herself to listen.

This time he was cursing one of his horses, and she could hear the
stinging whish of a whip, a wicked and sinister emphasis to the
beast's snorting and frenzied thumping of hoofs. Her blue eyes dilated
with fear; she knew in what pain and fright the horse must be lunging
under those blows. And Wes, raucous, violent, his mouth foul with
unclean words--only this morning he had told her that when Sunday came
they'd go into the woods and find a wild clematis to plant beside the
front door. Wild clematis! She could have laughed at the irony of it.

At last she could bear it no longer; she put her hands to her ears to
shut out the hideousness of it. After an interminable wait she took
them down. He had stopped--there was silence--but she heard footsteps
outside, and she literally cowered into the darkest corner of the
spring house. But it was only Aunt Dolcey, her lips set in a line of
endurance.

"I was lookin' erbout foh you, honey," she said reassuringly. "I di'n'
know where you was, en den I remembah you come off down heah. Let Aunt
Dolcey finish up dat cheese."

"What--what started him?" asked Annie piteously.

"I doan' jes' know--sound' like one de big team di'n' go inter his
right stall, er som'n like dat. It's always som'n triflin', en no
'count. But land, he'll be ovah it come night. Doan' look so white en
skeer, chile."

"But--but I been thinking--what if he might turn on me--what if he'd
strike me? Aunt Dolcey--did he ever strike you?"

"Oncet."

"Oh, Aunt Dolcey, what did you do?"

Something flared in Aunt Dolcey's eyes that was as old as her race.
She looked past Annie as if she saw something she rather relished;
just so her ancestors must have looked when they were dancing before a
bloodstained Congo fetish.

"You see dat big white scar on Marse Wes' lef' wris'? When he struck
me I mahk him dere wid my hot flatiron. Am' no man eveh gwine lif' his
hand to Dolcey, no matter who."

A shrewd question came to Annie:

"Aunt Dolcey, did he ever strike you again?"

"No, ma'am, no 'ndeedy, he didn'. Wil' Marse Wes may be, but he ain'
no crazy man. It's dat ole debbil in his nature, Miss Annie, honey