Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] by Yesteryear Page A

at us through a spyglass.”
    “Oh, Colin—” Addie’s fear sprang to life.
    “Let’s go back to the house.”
    “Why don’t we just start filling the bags with grass and work our way back toward the house. I’ll look as soon as I can.”
    Colin began to swing the short hand scythe. While she waited to scoop up the grass and stuff it in the sacks, Addie looked around as if watching the sheep. She lifted her eyes and saw the man. He and his horse blended into the shadows so well that she would never have noticed him. Colin was right: he was watching them through a spyglass.
    “We’ll fill this one sack, Colin. Move slowly. We don’t want him to think we’re leaving because of him. If he thought we were running, he could be over here before we got halfway to the house.”
    “Who is he?”
    “He’s not one of the preacher’s flock. If they come, they’ll ride up to the house bold as brass. It’s someone from town trying to get a look at Trisha.”
    “I wish Trisha wasn’t a nigger.”
    “Colin, that word just sets my teeth on edge. Please don’t use it. Trisha has some colored blood. Goodness! A hundred years from now, the way these southern
gentlemen
are begetting children, there won’t be a white person in the South who doesn’t have a little colored blood.”
    “But she’s . . . white as me.” Colin held up his suntanned arm.
    “I know. But it seems that if she has even a little Negro blood, she’s considered a Negro and treated like . . . property.”
    “Men don’t grab at white girls.”
    “No.” Addie slyly watched the watcher while they worked.
    “Mr. Tallman didn’t care if Trisha was a Negro.”
    “Mr. Tallman was raised among Indians, or rather his father was. In some places Indians are treated worse than Negroes.”
    “Why do white people do that, Miss Addie?”
    “Not all whites do it. Colin, he’s moving away. Now he’s stopped and . . . he’s looking at the house. He can see it from there. Get the sheep.” Hurriedly, Addie began to fill the sack with the grass Colin had cut.
    As soon as they rounded the knoll and headed down the lane to the farm buildings, Addie searched the hillside again and located the outline of the horse and rider.
    “He’s still there, watching the house. Trisha is in the garden. Dillon and Jane Ann are on the porch.”
    “What we gonna do?”
    “Stay close to the house.”
    Trisha came to meet them as they were putting the sheep in the pen.
    “Ya didn’t stay long.”
    “There’s a man on horseback watching the house with a spyglass.”
    “What’s he doin’ that for?”
    “Don’t look. Act like we don’t know he’s there.”
    “Horse hockey is what he is. I wish I had me one a them glasses so I could look at
him.
”
    “I wish I was growed up, is what I wish.” Colin kicked the dirt with his bare feet.
    As soon as supper was over, the younger children were washed and put to bed. After Addie doused the lamp, they sat in the dark and talked.
    “We need a dog,” Addie said. “Then we’d know when someone was nearby.”
    “Geese is good watchers too. A lady I knowed in Orleans had two geese. Anybody come on the place, they’d squawk.”
    “We’d have better luck finding a dog than we would geese.”
    “Ya reckon Mr. Tallman will come back?” Colin’s voice came out of the darkness. It was the second time in the past hour that he had asked that question.
    “I think he will,” Addie said. “But we can’t count on it. If the preacher insists on your going to Mr. Renshaw, I’ll visit all the church members and tell them what kind of man Ellis Renshaw is.”
    “They’d not believe ya,” Trisha scoffed. “ ’Sides, ya can’t talk nasty, Miss Addie, and ya know it.”
    “There’s another thing we can do. Pack up and leave in the night. We could go to another town, maybe Fort Smith, and start us up an eating place. We could do that, but we won’t have any money until I sell the farm.”
    “Sell the farm?” Colin’s