"Whut's the matter with you, Gordon Lee Surrender Jones?" she demanded.
"Whut you mean by stickin' out yer lip lak a circus camel?"

Now that the opportunity for action had come, he feared to take
advantage of it. Amanda, small as she was, looked firm and determined,
and he knew by experience that he was no match for her.

"'Tain't fer you to be astin' _me_ whut's de matter," he began
significantly. "De glove's on de other han'."

"Whut you 'sinuatin', nigger?" cried Amanda, now thoroughly roused.

"I's tired layin' heah under dis heah spell," complained Gordon Lee. "I
knowed all 'long 'twas a hoodoo, but I neber 'spicioned till to-day who
was 'sponsible fer hit. Aunt Kizzy tried de test, an', 'fore de Lawd,
hit p'inted powerful' near home."

Amanda sank into the one rocking-chair the cabin boasted, and dropped
her hands in her lap. Her anger had given place for the moment to sheer
amazement.

"Well, if this ain't the beatenest thing I ever heard tell of in all my
born days! Do you mean to say that that honery old cross-eyed nigger
Kizzy had the audacity to set up before my fire, in my house, an' tell
my husband I'd laid a spell on him?"

"Dat's whut de signs p'int to," said Gordon Lee, doggedly.

Amanda rose, and it seemed to him that she towered to the ceiling. With
hands on hips and head thrown back, she delivered herself, and her voice
rang with suppressed passion.

"Yas, I laid a spell on yer! I laid a spell on yer when I let you quit
work, an' lay up in bed wid nothin' to do but to circulate yer symtems.
I put a spell on yer when I nuss you an' feed you an' s'port you an'
spile the life plumb outen you. I ain't claimin' 't wasn't rheumatism in
the fust place, but it's a spell now, all right--a spell I did lay on
yer, a spell of laziness pure an' simple!"

After this outburst the relations were decidedly strained in the little
cabin at the far end of Hurricane Hollow. Gordon Lee persistently
refused to eat anything his wife cooked for him, depending upon the
food that Aunt Kizzy or other neighbors brought in.

To Amanda the humiliation of this was acute. She used every strategy to
conciliate him, and at last succeeded by bringing home some pig's feet.
His appetite got the better of his resentment, and he disposed of four
with evident relish.

With the approach of winter, however, other and graver troubles
developed. The rent of the cabin, which had always been promptly paid
out of Gordon Lee's wages