"Miss Lady," said Calvin Blount, "now listen to me. I've grown up down here like any savage. I haven't been much better than my old daddy, nor much different; and every man ought to grow better than his dad, if he can. I have driven the niggers to work, and I have been comfortable on what they raised. I can see it's right rough down here, though. I never used to think so. All I wanted in the world was rain enough to make the cotton sure, and mast enough to make the b'ahs come. I was happy, or thought I was, until you came, though I reckon I never really knew what that word meant before. I never did see a woman I liked as well as my pack of dogs. This place was good enough for me. Now, listen. I was fool enough to think for one minute, Miss Lady, for just one minute, that it was good enough for you. I thought maybe you and I could understand a heap of things together. Now, I hear you say that you're lonesome, that you're not happy here. Happy? Why, I tell you, Miss Lady, I am half-dying of lonesomeness right now, right here in my own home, on my own ground, in the only place in God A'mighty's world where I am fit to live." "You must not," said Miss Lady, and turned toward him eyes in which stood sudden tears. "I must go. I must go away." "Listen, I tell you," said Blount again, sternly, and put out a hand as she would have risen. "You go away? Where would you go? What would you do? Now, wait till I get done. Here," he cried almost savagely, "stand up here like I tell you, and listen to what I've got to say! Stand right there!" He drew in one grasp from his pocket his handkerchief and his gauntlet gloves, and swept a place clean upon the gallery floor before her. "Stand right there, Miss Lady," said he, with all his old imperiousness. "Stand in that place where I done made it clean and easy for you, like I want to make the whole world clean and easy for you always. I'd like to smooth it that-away for you, always. Now, look at me, Miss Lady. I ain't a coward, at least I never was till now, and maybe not now; for I came here as soon as I knew how this thing was, though God knows I wanted to get on my horse and ride the other way as fast as I could. I came here because I wouldn't have been a man if I hadn't come, if I hadn't said this to the first woman I ever thought twice about." "Don't, don't, please! please!" cried Miss Lady, pushing out her hands, but he commanded her again, sternly. "Stop," said he. "There's one time when a man has a right to say his say, and say it all. I've got to tell you this. I've got to offer myself to you in marriage, Miss Lady. I've got to ask that of you; and, God pity me, I've got to give myself my own answer. Listen! Stop! It ain't for you to answer. It's for me.