The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Uncalled, by Paul Laurence Dunbar

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Uncalled
A Novel

Author: Paul Laurence Dunbar

Release Date: April 25, 2008 [eBook #25171]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNCALLED***

E-text prepared by S. Drawehn, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

THE UNCALLED

A Novel

by

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

Author of "Lyrics of Lowly Life"

New York
International Association of Newspapers and Authors
1901

Copyright, 1898
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Copyright, 1898
by Dodd, Mead and Company

North River Bindery Co.
Printers and Binders
New York

Dedicated

TO MY WIFE

THE UNCALLED

CHAPTER I

It was about six o'clock of a winter's morning. In the eastern sky faint
streaks of grey had come and were succeeded by flashes of red,
crimson-cloaked heralds of the coming day. It had snowed the day before,
but a warm wind had sprung up during the night, and the snow had
partially melted, leaving the earth showing through in ugly patches of
yellow clay and sooty mud. Half despoiled of their white mantle, though
with enough of it left to stand out in bold contrast to the bare places,
the houses loomed up, black, dripping, and hideous. Every once in a
while the wind caught the water as it trickled from the eaves, and sent
it flying abroad in a chill unsparkling spray. The morning came in,
cold, damp, and dismal.

At the end of a short, dirty street in the meanest part of the small
Ohio town of Dexter stood a house more sagging and dilapidated in
appearance than its disreputable fellows. From the foundation the walls
converged to the roof, which seemed to hold its place less by virtue of
nails and rafters than by faith. The whole aspect of the dwelling, if
dwelling it could be called, was as if, conscious of its own meanness,
it was shrinking away from its neighbours and into itself. A sickly
light gleamed from one of the windows. As the dawn came into the sky, a
woman came to