"Now, Miss Catharine, don't say that; it's a bad thing to hate what we
must put up with. You never heard, did you, as Bellamy had a sister a
good bit older than myself? She _was_ a tartar, and no mistake. She
lived with Bellamy and kept house for him, and when we married, Bellamy
said she must stay with us. She used to put on him as you never saw, but
he, somehow, seemed never to mind it; some men don't feel such things,
and some do, but most on 'em don't when it's a woman, but I think a
woman's worse. Well, what was I saying?--she put on me just in the same
way and come between me and the servant-girl and the men, and when I told
them to go and do one thing, went and told them to do another, and I was
young, and I thought when I was married I was going to be mistress, and
she called me 'a chit' to her brother, and I mind one day I went upstairs
and fell on my knees and cried till I thought my heart would break, and I
said, 'O my God, when will it please Thee to take that woman to Thyself!'
Now to wish anybody dead is bad enough, but to ask the Lord to take 'em
is awful; but then it was so hard to bear 'cause I couldn't say nothing
about it, and I'm one of them as can't keep myself bottled up like ginger-
beer. You don't remember old Jacob? He had been at Chapel Farm in
Bellamy's father's time, and always looked on Bellamy as his boy, and
used to be very free with him, notwithstanding he was the best creature
as ever lived. He took a liking to me, and I needn't say that, liking of
me, he didn't like Bellamy's sister. Well, I came down, and I went out
of doors to get a bit of fresh air--for I'm always better out of
doors--and I went up by the cart-shed, and being faint a bit, sat down on
the waggon shafts. Old Jacob, he came by; I can see him now; it was just
about Michaelmas time, a-getting dark after tea, though I hadn't had any,
and he said to me, 'Hullo, missus, what are here for? and you've been a-
cryin',' for I had my face toward the sky and was looking at it. I never
spoke. 'I know what's the matter with you,' says he; 'do you think I
don't? Now if you go on chafing of yourself, you'll worrit yourself into
your grave, that's all. Last week there was something the matter with
that there dog, and she howled night after night, and I never slept a
wink. The first morning after she'd been a-yelping I was in a temper,
and had half a mind to kill her. I felt as if she'd got a spite against
me; but it come to me as she'd got no spite against _me_, and then all my
worriting went away. I don't say as I slept much till she was better,
but I didn't _worrit_. Now Bellamy's sister don't mean nothing against
you. That's the way God-a-mighty made her.' I've never forgot what
Jacob said, and I know it made a difference, but the Lord took her not
long afterwards."
"But I don't see what that has to do with me. It isn't the same thing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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