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LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY 21 |
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that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and at the best only let alone; and what do I owe ? I 've paid for all my keeping a hundred times over. I won't bear it. No, I won't! " he said, clenching his hand with a fierce frown.
Eliza trembled, and was silent. She had never seen her husband in this mood before; and her gentle system of ethics seemed to bend like a reed in the surges of such passions.
" You know poor little Carlo, that you gave me," added George; " the creature has been about all the comfort that I 've had. He has slept with me nights, and followed me around days, and kind o' looked at me as if he understood how I felt. Well, the other day I was just feeding him with a few old scraps I picked up by the kitchen door, and Mas'r came along, and said I was feeding him up at his expense, aud that he could n't afford to have every nigger keeping his dog, and ordered me to tie a stone to his neck and throw him in the pond."
" Oh, George, you did n't do it! "
" Do it ? not I! — but he did. Mas'r Tom pelted the poor drowning creature with stones. Poor thing! he looked at me so mournful, as if he wondered why I did n't save him. I had to take a flogging because I would n't do it myself. I don't care. Mas'r will find out that I 'm one that whipping won't tame. My day will come yet, if he don't look out."
" What are you going to do ? Oh, George, don't do anything wicked; if you only trust in God, and try to do right, He '11 deliver you."
" I an't a Christian like you, Eliza ; my heart's full of bitterness ; I can't trust in God. Why does He let things be so ? "
" Oh, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best."
" That's easy to say for people that are sitting on their |
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