ed Joe's services to him.

Her heart had contracted at the words, for the cruelty of Isom Chase was
notorious. A bound boy had died in his service not many years before,
kicked by a mule, it was said. There had been mutterings at that time,
and talk of an investigation, which never came to a head because the
bound lad was nobody, taken out of the county home. But the fear in the
widow's heart that moment was not for her son; it was for Isom Chase.

"Lord 'a' mercy, Mr. Chase, you mustn't never strike Joe!" she warned.
"You don't know what kind of a boy he is, Mr. Chase. I'm afraid he might
up and hurt you maybe, if you ever done that."

"I'll handle him in my own way," with portentous significance; "but I
want you to understand my rights fully at the start."

"Yes, sir," she answered meekly.

Joe was coming now, pitchfork over his shoulder, from the field where he
had been burning corn-stalks, making ready for the plow. She hastened to
set out a basin of water on the bench beside the kitchen door, and
turned then into the room to light the lamp and place it on the waiting
table.

Joe appeared at the door, drying his hands on the dangling towel. He was
a tall, gaunt-faced boy, big-boned, raw-jointed, the framework for
prodigious strength. His shoulders all but filled the narrow doorway,
his crown came within an inch of its lintel. His face was glowing from
the scrubbing which he had given it with home-made lye soap, his
drenched hair fell in heavy locks down his deep forehead.

"Well, Mother, what's happened?" he asked, noting her uneasiness as she
sat waiting him at the table, the steaming coffee-pot at her hand.

"Sit down and start your supper, son, and we'll talk as we go along,"
said she.

Joe gave his hair a "lick and a promise" with the comb, and took his
place at the table. Mrs. Newbolt bent her head and pronounced the
thanksgiving which that humble board never lacked, and she drew it out
to an amazing and uncomfortable length that evening, as Joe's impatient
stomach could bear clamorous witness.

Sarah Newbolt had a wide fame as a religious woman, and a woman who
could get more hell-fire into her belief and more melancholy pleasure
out of it than any hard-shell preacher in the land. It was a doleful
religion, with little promise or hope in it, and a great deal of blood
and suffering between the world and its doubtful reward; but Sarah
Newbolt lived according to its stern inflexibility, and sang its
s