Anita Mills by Bittersweet

Author:Bittersweet [Bittersweet]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Spence had seen slaves under the whip who .couldn’t work as hard as Laura Taylor. And it didn’t seem to make any difference what she tackled. She could study something, then figure out a way to do it, whether it was patching the wall, evening the floor, or sending a bucket of wet laundry over a pulley next to the clothesline. In the week he’d been living in her cabin, his admiration of her had grown by the day.

And her Creator had certainly endowed her with an indomitable spirit. She was totally unwilling to give up on anything until she’d given it her all. He was beginning to think there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do, even though he knew it sounded ridiculous to say it. He’d thought he was doing her some sort of favor by staying there, but he was beginning to think she didn’t need him.

She looked up from the table where she’d been counting her money. “Is something the matter?”

“No. I was thinking about getting a job with the railroad.”

“They’ve got a doctor.”

“I hear they might be hiring more men on the repair track.”

“The rep track? It’s hard, dirty work—a lot worse than washing clothes.” Holding up the money jar, she said, “There’s twenty dollars in here and another fourteen on the table.” Stuffing the new money in with the rest, she added, “You’ve got too much education to work the rep track, Dr. Hardin.”

“Hard work never hurt anyone. If it did, you’d be dead.”

“But I’m used to it, she pointed out mildly. “I wasn’t born to the purple like some folks I know. You don’t need to be swinging a hammer—you’ve got a higher calling than that.”

“I wasn’t born to the purple, as you call it.”

“What about that plantation you grew up on?”

“My stepfather inherited a share of it—he didn’t own it all. Miss Clarissa had half.”

“Well, all my daddy had was forty acres, and every time it looked like there’d be a good crop coming in, something would. happen to it. It’d be too wet, or it’d be too dry, or the hail would beat it to pieces.”

“Why did he stay on it?”

She rubbed the side of her nose pensively before answering. “He was a farmer, just like his father—he came from a long line of farmers. He didn’t think he was poor as long as he had his land.”

“Yeah, but if it didn’t make a living for him—”

“Now, you’re sounding just like Jesse. There are some things a lot more important than money. Like being honest, for instance. Or caring about your fellow man. Daddy never had a slave in his life.”

“Bingham didn’t want any. He didn’t believe in slavery either.”

“Then why didn’t he free his and hire men to get his planting done?”

“It wasn’t that easy.”

“He wasn’t forced to keep them, was he?” she countered.

“He didn’t own them outright,” he answered evenly. “His sister owned half of everything.”

“Then he should have sold his half. You can’t say you don’t believe in something and keep on doing it, can you?”

“Look—I’m not Thad Bingham, so I can’t answer that.

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