"Don't!" I pleaded. "Dinner is just ready, and you'll spoil it if you
eat all that bread and butter and apple." Just exactly a week before, at
almost that exact hour, the Reverend Gregory Goodloe had refused the cup
of tea I had stood holding for him in my hand for five minutes on the
front porch of the Poplars, and I had taken a resolve that never would
he again receive a food invitation from me. I didn't count Mammy's
"snack" eaten on the Harpeth adventure. I didn't understand myself and
my sudden rush of dismay at the idea of a spoiled dinner for him, but I
couldn't stop myself as I added: "Mammy has apple dumplings and hard sauce; please don't--I mean please
do come in to dinner with us."
"Thank you, but as you see I've about dined," he answered me, as with a
laugh he held out his fragments. "Jefferson was feeling badly and I sent
him to bed instead of the parsonage kitchen." Mammy had told me that the
Reverend Mr. Goodloe had taken hers and Dabney's cherished and perfectly
worthless only son as his sole domestic dependence, and Mammy had added
the fact that Jeff had "shot nary crap since the parson rescued him from
the jaw of the jail."
"Huh," ejaculated Dabney over the hoe he had taken from father and was
using at his direction while father lined the border beside the bed with
his sharp spade. I knew the contempt in his voice was for the illness of
Jefferson, and the Reverend Mr. Goodloe and I both laughed as he took
the last bite of the brown slab and then held out the unbitten side of
the apple to me.
"You eat your fruit with me, not in dumplings with hard sauce," he said,
and there was a wooing note in his voice as if he pleaded for that
friendliness from me to heal a hurt.
"No, I won't eat out of your hand," I answered, with a cool emphasis
on the "I." And I looked him straight in the eyes, for I wanted him to
know that I had thoroughly understood his refusal of my invitation
couched so gently, but which I considered in reality haughty and
resentful, especially as I had been his guest in his car. "We'll wait
until you get your shower, father, and not much longer," I said to
father, as I turned and went along the flagstones to the steps that led
to the balcony upon which opened the long windows of the dining room. I
was furious and I was hurt.
At times I become acutely conscious that I am very imperious, but it is
not entirely my fault. My friends have depended upon my clear head, in
which father's brain seems to work with a kind of feminine vigor, and I
have always felt that the superior force with which I have loved and
cherished them made it all right. I've always stood by them and used
myself mercilessly for their exigencies, and I suppose I have ruled them
as mercilessly. I rarely encounter another will, and to clash into one
as strong as mine drew the sparks of my nature. The blaze was soon over,
but I--smouldered.