ntleman's name,
and"--choking a little--"all the rest of it. I hate him! He makes me
sick. I wish he was dead. He's a liar and a bully and a fool. I'd kill
him if he wasn't my father. I should like to kill him for _being_ my
father!"

Suddenly his voice faltered and his face turned white. He walked to the
other side of the room, turning his back to them all, and, flinging
himself into a chair, dropped his curly head on his arm on the
window-sill and sobbed aloud with a weakness and broken-down fury pitiful
to see.

The Colonel burst into a frantic shriek of laughter.

"Queer little devil," he said. "Prou' lit'l devil! Like's moth'--don'
like it. Moth' used er cry. _She_ didn't like it."

CHAPTER X

As the Cross-roads had regarded Tom as a piece of personal property to be
proud of, so it fell into the habit of regarding his _protegee_. The
romance of her history was considered to confer distinction upon the
vicinity, and Tom's affection for her was approved of as a sentiment
worthy of the largeness of the Cross-roads nature.

"They kinder set one anuther off," it was frequently remarked, "her
a-bein' so little and him so big, an' both of 'em stickin' to each other
so clost. Lordy! 'tain't no use a-tryin' to part 'em. Sheby, she ain't
a-goin' nowhar 'thout Tom, an' Tom, he h'aint a-goin' nowhars 'thout
Sheby!"

When the child was five years old the changes which had taken place in
the store were followed by still greater changes in the house. Up to her
fifth birthday the experiences had balanced themselves between the store
and the three back rooms with their bare floors and rough walls. She had
had her corner, her small chair behind the counter or near the stove, and
there she had amused herself with her playthings through long or short
days, and in the evening Tom had taken her upon his shoulder and carried
her back to the house, as it was called, leaving his careless, roystering
gaiety behind him locked up in the store, ready to be resumed for the
edification of his customers the next morning.

"He don't hev no pore folkses ways wid dat chile," said Mornin once to
Mrs. Doty; "he don't never speak to her no other then gen'leman way. He's
a-raisin' her to be fitten fur de highes'. He's mighty keerful ob her way
ob speakin' an' settin' to de table. Mornin's got to stand 'hind her
cheer an' wait on her hersel'; an' sence she was big 'nuff to set dar,
she's had a silver fork an' spoon an' napkin-ring same'