Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916 / 2008-06-06 00:00:00
Their eyes never left him. He
resented this unceasing scrutiny. It got upon his nerves. He was sure
they were evolving some scheme to rob him of his tinned sausages, or,
possibly, to kill him. It was then he began to dislike them. In reality,
they were discussing the watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it
was a powerful juju, to ward off evil spirits. They were afraid of it.
One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was
measuring a _bras_ of cloth. As he had been taught, he held the cloth in
his teeth and stretched it to the ends of his finger-tips. The wood-boy
thought the white man was giving him short measure. White men always
_had_ given him short measure, and, at a glance, he could not recognize
that this one was an Everett of Boston.
So he opened Everett's fingers.
All the blood in Everett's body leaped to his head. That he, a white
man, an Everett, who had come so far to set these people free, should
be accused by one of them of petty theft!
He caught up a log of fire wood and laid open the scalp of the black
boy, from the eye to the crown of his head. The boy dropped, and
Everett, seeing the blood creeping through his kinky wool, turned ill
with nausea.
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