"Mr. Edwards hinders you?"
"Mass' Ed'ards bery smart man, Miss Daisy. He want massa's
work done up all jus' so."
"And he says that the prayer-meeting hinders the work, Jem?"
"Clar, missis, Mass' Ed'ards got long head; he see furder den
me," Jem said, shaking his own head as, if the whole thing
were beyond him. I let him go. But a day or two after I
attacked Margaret on the subject. She and Jem, I knew, were
particular friends. Margaret was oracular and mysterious, and
looked like a thunder cloud. I got nothing from her, except an
increase of uneasiness. I was afraid to go further in my
inquiries; yet could not rest without. The house servants, I
knew, would not be likely to tell me anything that would
trouble me, if they could help it. The only exception was
mammy Theresa; who with all her love for me had either less
tact, or had grown from long habit hardened to the state of
things in which she had been brought up. From her, by a little
cross questioning, I learned that Jem and others had been
forbidden to come to the Sunday readings; and their disobeying
had been visited with the lash, not once nor twice; till, as
mammy Theresa said, " 'peared like it warn't no use to try to
be good agin de devil.
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