These were almost her sister’s first words, and Amelia had stared at her rather stupidly. All of her thoughts kept running back to Tom, it seemed. Amelia was sure her sister hadn’t meant to imply that Tom hadn’t been a “God-fearing” man. Though, as a matter of fact, she was a little vague in her own mind. She’d never heard Tom _say_ anything about fearing God. He’d never been very free with talk about God. That was before she met Mr. Covey. She had come up on the boat to St. Michaels where, on the dock, one of Edward Covey’s “people” was waiting for her. This in itself was an event. There weren’t any slaves in her county, and she felt pretty elegant being driven along the road with an obsequious black man holding the reins. After a time they had turned off the highway onto a sandy lane which carried them between fields jutting out into the bay. She could see the place from some distance, and in the dusk the sprawling building with barn and outhouses loomed like a great plantation manor. This impression hardly survived the first dusk, but Covey’s passion to “get ahead” was plain to see. Very soon Amelia Kemp was glad that she had been given a bed in the attic. The first few evenings, climbing up the narrow ladder from the lower floor, she had wondered about several rooms opening out on the second floor. They seemed to be empty. Soon she blessed her good fortune, and it wasn’t long before she became convinced the idea had been her sister’s--not Covey’s. Only when she lowered the attic trap door could she rid herself of him. Then she couldn’t see the cruel, green eyes; she didn’t feel him creeping up behind her or hear his voice. It was his voice particularly that she wanted to shut out, his voice coming out of the corner of his mouth, his voice that so perfectly matched the short, hairy hands. At the thought of the terrible things she had seen him do with those hands her flesh chilled. Lucy had married Covey down in town where she had gone to work. He had not come to her home to meet her folks. So Amelia didn’t know about the “slave-breaking.” When she saw the slaves about, she assumed that her brother-in-law was more prosperous than she had imagined; and that first evening she could not understand why her sister was so worn. Her education began the first morning, when they called her before dawn. She was used to getting up early, only she’d thought folks with slaves to do their work could lie abed till after sun-up. Though she dressed hastily and hurried downstairs, it was quite evident she was keeping them waiting in the big room. The stench of unwashed bodies stopped her in the doorway.