A pink-faced
chit bubbling over with life and useless energy, a perfect curse
she was, with all sorts of extravagant tastes and he was
powerless to check her, for, although he was still her guardian,
there were certain provisions of the will--he consulted the copy
he kept locked up in his desk in the office--that permitted her
to do pretty much as she pleased with her income. It was a hell
of a will! She could spend fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a
year if she wanted to and he couldn't prevent it. It was an
iniquitous document!
Well, the place could go straight off to the devil, he wouldn't
wear out his life economizing for her to waste--he didn't get a
thank-you--and he knew that nobody took off the land bigger crops
than he did, while bale for bale his cotton outsold all other
cotton raised in the county--that was the kind of a manager he
was. He wagged his head in self-approval. And what did he get
out of it? A lump sum each year with a further lump sum of
twenty thousand dollars when she came of age--soon now--or
married. Tom's eyes bulged from their sockets--she'd be doing
that next, to spite him!
Betty's sphere of influence rapidly extended itself. She soon
began to have her doubts concerning the treatment accorded the
slaves, and was not long in discovering that Hicks, the overseer,
ran things with a heavy hand. Matters reached a crisis one day
when, happening to ride through the quarters, she found him
disciplining a refractory black.
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