crabbed way at breakfast, sulky and silent. But his evil
humor did not appear to weigh with any shadow of trouble on Joe, who ate
what was set before him like a hungry horse and looked around for more.

Ollie's interest in Joe was acutely sharpened by the incident of rising.
There must be something uncommon, indeed, in a lad of Joe's years, she
thought, to enable him to meet and pass off such a serious thing in that
untroubled way. As she served the table, there being griddle-cakes of
cornmeal that morning to flank the one egg and fragments of rusty bacon
each, she studied the boy's face carefully. She noted the high, clear
forehead, the large nose, the fineness of the heavy, black hair which
lay shaggy upon his temples. She studied the long hands, the grave line
of his mouth, and caught a quick glimpse now and then of his large,
serious gray eyes.

Here was an uncommon boy, with the man in him half showing; Isom was
right about that. Let it be blood or what it might, she liked him. Hope
of the cheer that he surely would bring into that dark house quickened
her cheek to a color which had grown strange to it in those heavy
months.

Joe's efforts in the field must have been highly satisfactory to Isom
that forenoon, for the master of the house came to the table at
dinner-time in quite a lively mood. The morning's unpleasantness seemed
to have been forgotten. Ollie noticed her husband more than once during
the meal measuring Joe's capabilities for future strength with
calculating, satisfied eyes. She sat at the table with them, taking
minute note of Joe at closer range, studying him curiously, awed a
little by the austerity of his young face, and the melancholy of his
eyes, in which there seemed to lie the concentrated sorrow of many
forebears who had suffered and died with burdens upon their hearts.

"Couldn't you manage to pick us a mess of dandelion for supper, Ollie?"
asked Isom. "I notice it's comin' up thick in the yard."

"I might, if I could find the time," said Ollie.

"Oh, I guess you'll have time enough," said Isom, severely.

Her face grew pale; she lowered her head as if to hide her fear from
Joe.

"Cook it with a jowl," ordered Isom; "they go fine together, and it's
good for the blood."

Joe was beginning to yearn forward to Sunday, when he could go home to
his mother for a satisfying meal, of which he was sharply feeling the
need. It was a mystery to him how Isom kept up on that fare, so scant
and