Read "The Eatonville Anthology" by Zora Neale Hurston online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Mrs. McDuffy goes to Church every Sunday and always shouts and tells / her "determination. " Her husband always sits in the back row and beats / her as soon as they get home. He says there's no sense in her shouting, / as big a devil as she is. She just does it to slur him. Elijah Moseley / asked her why she didn't stop shouting, seeing she always got a beating / about it. She says she can't "squinch the sperrit. " Then Elijah asked / Mr. McDuffy to stop beating her, seeing that she was going to shout / anyway. He answered that she just did it for spite and that his fist / was just as hard as her head. He could last just as long as she. So the / village let the matter rest.