Page:Dunbar - The Sport of the Gods (1902).pdf/148

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE SPORT OF THE GODS

"But don't you see what she can do for us, ma? She knows people that I know, and she can ruin me with them."

"I ain't never bowed my haid to Minty Brown an' I ain't a-goin' to do it now," was his mother's only reply.

"Oh, ma," Kitty put in, "you don't want to get talked about up here, do you?"

"We'd jes' as well be talked about fu' somep'n we didn't do as fu' somep'n we did do, an' it wouldn' be long befo' we'd come to dat if we made frien's wid dat Brown gal. I ain't a-goin' to do it. I'm ashamed o' you, Kitty, fu' wantin' me to."

The girl began to cry, while her brother walked the floor angrily.

"You 'll see what 'll happen," he cried; "you 'll see."

Fannie looked at her son, and she seemed to see him more clearly than she had ever seen him before,—his foppery, his meanness, his cowardice.

"Well," she answered with a sigh, "it

136