Angels Make Their Hope Here Read Online Free PDF Page B

boy who had swiped them off a westbound barge. Ever the clever bargainer, Duncan skinned the boy—giving him half what the animals were worth even on the fast market—and the three were jocular, pleased with their adventure.
    Dossie nodded to Duncan when he walked onto the Wilhelms’ porch behind Jan. She wanted to rush up and hug Duncan because he’d returned. Dossie restrained herself at some effort, and he rewarded her by holding her chin high, asking her to bring him a repast.
    “Mr. Duncan wants a glass of sour milk, ma’am—an’ some bread for it, he said.”
    “Well, he gon’ wait for his supper jus’ like Mr. Wilhelm!” Hat retorted with some humor in her fussing.
    A look of grave discomfort crossed Dossie’s face. Hat noted it and was some bit alarmed. Was this girl so scared of Duncan that she dared not jump to do his bidding?
    “He hasn’t been layin’ a hand on you, has he?” Hat asked, feeling guilty that she hadn’t marked the relations between this little gal and Duncan.
    Affronted at the question, Dossie spoke up like she’d done that first time Hat had seen her. “No, ma’am. He does no such thing! I only wan’ him to have what he ask for,” she answered plain and simple.
    Hat chuckled and remembered that she had once been absolutely obedient to her brother. “Pippy, go fetch me…,” Duncan would say, and she would run off to get string and small knives and glasses of buttermilk.
    “Yonder,” Hat said and pointed toward a crock. “Give him sour milk and some of tha’ stale bread and tell him I say to stop up his mouth with it!” she said with a guffaw.
    Dossie knew that it wasn’t proper for her to sit at Duncan’s side on the porch with Mr. Wilhelm and Jan and Pet. She wanted to listen to his banter, though, and feel his domination of the other men. This was the part of seeing him in company with the others that she most enjoyed. She liked crediting thatDuncan was chief among the others, and that all of the others, including her, lived in his heaven. His voice cut through the others’ talk when he expressed an opinion or told a tale or rebuked one of the boys. She presented the buttermilk and bread to him in the midst of banter and withdrew to the kitchen.
    Later Hat gave her a pot to hoist, and she did and carried the dinner stew to the table.
    “Sirs, your dinner is down,” Dossie mumbled shyly. Jan and Pet laughed stupidly, and Duncan cut his eyes.
    Still worried that she ought not to be seated among the others in God’s heaven, Dossie sat on the edge of her chair ready to leap up to answer Duncan’s slightest wish. The boys snickered at her and hunched each other’s ribs when their uncle was not watching.
    After eating themselves to founder, Ernst Wilhelm and Duncan went to the porch to smoke cigars and drink whiskey. Jan and Pet followed them, and Jan began to dance—raising his arms and shuffling his feet in soft moccasins. A cloud of smoke was soon so thick around them that Dossie stood back in the doorway and watched and listened. She was transfixed at the sight of Jan’s dancing and got woozy from the aroma of liquor and the smoke. Hat did not let her linger long.
    “Come away,” she said and led Dossie to her own bedroom.
    Dossie stopped just inside the doorway and, as before, she marveled. She was still unsure that Duncan was not God and these others his minions. Their places—their houses, their beds, the chairs at their hearths—had the atmosphere of a heaven. The People of Russell’s Knob were, no doubt, caught in tangles and angry fusses, but they had plenty and they were lusty and loyaland celebratory. Yes, she had indeed been rescued by God and brought to Canaan Land.
    The room was a large one and was divided in the middle by the large bed. All of Hat’s wardrobe and her many adornments were placed to the left of the bed, and Ernst Wilhelm’s clothes and sundry were to the right of the great bed. Once inside the room Hat began to loosen her