Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 70 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 70: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is running prose from page 54 of *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*, a Victorian penny dreadful. The text describes a household in crisis: Mrs. Anderson is mysteriously ill and confined, a dying man is hidden in the loom-room, and visitors are strictly forbidden entry. Tom and Dare maintain self-control despite their distress. The passage then shifts to Dilsey, a servant, managing domestic complications—keeping the looms running despite the freezing weather while concealing the household's true situation. Dare grows suspicious that Dilsey's claims of the mistress improving may be false, noticing the absence of any message from the supposed convalescent.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
54 Tom ANDERSON, DaARE-DEVIL Dumbly they stood listening to the creak of his boots as he went downstairs. Tomwas grim. Dare’s eyes were large. But self-control was bred in the bone of both. They had need of it, these days. Mrs. Anderson continued strangely, mysteriously ill. And in his prison in the loom-room lay a wasting ghost of a man. All offers of assistance in sick- nursing — her friends and neighbors would gladly have nursed Mrs. Anderson — were declined, perforce. “We can’t risk ’em,” said Tom, shaking his head in the direc- tion of the loom-room. And Dilsey roused up with the fierceness of a mastiff. “Tell yer right now! Nobody ainh gwine putt de foot on dem stairs!” So the thin picket- line was thrown round the ghost in the garret. Nor friend nor foe suspected that at Oxheart House zwo lives hung in the balance. A Of course ‘Tom had to stop school. Gruff Dr. Pratt was full of fight for his patients. Dare was a balm of hurt minds. And Mimi: Why, she was never hysterical; never broke down; never gave up. Her “strength was as the strength of ten.” Little, timid, shrinking Mimi! Dilsey’s wits were taxed to meet the complications of the domestic situation. “‘Whut I gwine do ’bout de weavin’? Cyarn’ let nobody in dar ter wuk! Gwine tell dem niggers Miss Sa’ah say it mighty cold ter set inde looms. Putt dem wheels up ter de cab’n fires. Git out er big chance er spills — while dis freezin’ spell las’.”’ ‘Che strait in which the household was placed should not react on the army of domestics, Dilsey was determined. “Bekase Miss 5Sa’ah ailin’ no reason ter be slack wid dem cyards. Tek a-holt er dem wool-rolls en’ spun-truck. Tu’n off yer wuk! Boun’ Ill hol’ dem niggers down ter de tas’!”’ she swore. She did. But it seemed to Dare that Dilsey was getting “awfully queer.” She always told the other servants that their mistress would “soon be ’bout.”’ She always answered the doorbell herself, meeting inquiry with “Mendin’, I thank yer, ma’am. She mendin’. But de doctor don’ ‘low no comp’ny yit.”’ If she was better, why did no message from the convalescent come to Dare? “I’d be a sorry sort to ECONMMICLOOOKS.(€© m