The wheat harvest was nearly over. Nancy and her companions had been carrying dinner to the mowers, in the big wheat field on the other side of Back Creek. On her way home Nancy slipped from the company and ran through Mrs. Blake’s yard to her kitchen door. Mary and Betty had finished washing the dishes, and their mother was preparing to roast coffee beans in the oven. After one look at Nancy’s face, she told the children they could go down the road and watch Grandfather cutting his wheat. When they were gone, she turned to the yellow girl.

“What’s the matter now, child? Has that scamp been pestering you again? Set down and tell me.”

Nancy dropped into a chair. “Oh, I’m most drove out-a my mind, I cain’t bear it no longer, ‘deed I cain’t! I gets no rest night nor day. I’m goin’ to throw myself into the millpawnd, I am!” She bowed her head on her arms and broke into sobs.

“Hush, hush! Don’t talk so, Nancy, it’s wicked. Stop your crying, and tell me about it.” She stood over the girl, stroking her quivering shoulders until the sobs grew more throaty and, as it were, dried up. Nancy lifted her face.

“Miz’ Blake, you’s the only one I got to talk to. He’s just after me night an’ day, till I wisht I’d never been bawn.”

“I guess a good many of us wish that, sometimes. But we come right again, and bear our lot. Have you said anything to my father?”

“How could I, Miz’ Blake? I’d die a’ shame to speak it before that good ole man. I got nobody I kin come to but you.”

“Then you must try to make it plain to me, Nancy. Can’t you keep out of his way?”

“It’s worst at night, Miz’ Blake. You know I sleeps outside Miss Sapphy’s door, an’ he’s right over me, at the top of the stairs. One night I heard him comin’ down the stairs in his bare feet, an’ I jumped up an’ run into the Mistress’s room, makin’ out I thought I heered her callin’ me. She was right cross ‘cause I’d waked her up, and sent me back to my bed, an’ I layed there awake till mornin’. If I was to sleep sound, he could slip in to me any time. If I hollered, the Mistress would put it all on me; she’d say I done somethin’ to make him think I was a bad girl. Another time I heard him slippin’ down at night, an’ I jumped an’ run to old Mr. Washington. You know he sleeps on a cot in the wine closet. He give me his bed, an’ he set up all night in the hall. So I cain’t run in to the Mistress agin, an’ I hates to go to Mr. Washington. He needs his rest. Why, Miz’ Blake, there ain’t no stoppin’ Mr. Martin. He kin jist slip into my bed any night if I happens to fall asleep. I got nobody to call to. I cain’t do nothin’!”

Here Nancy sprang from her chair and stood with her hands pressed against her forehead and her blue-black hair.

“I tell you, I’d druther drown myself before he got at me than after! Only I want SOMEBODY as’ll speak up for me to the Master, an’ tell him I didn’t do it from wickedness. Please, mam, tell him how I was drove to it.”

When she spoke of the Master, she began to cry again, and could not go on.

Presently Mrs. Blake said quietly but resolutely: “I’m a-going to get you away from all this, Nancy. Mind you, no more talk about the mill dam. You’re young and have life before you. I’ve seen how things were going, and I’ve been figuring on how to get you away from the mill. You’ve not been real happy over there for a good while back.”

“No’m, not since she turned on me.” Nancy spoke absently, as if talking to herself. “It ain’t nothing she DOES to me. I don&rsqu............