yo' hat?" came invitingly from the
doorway.

Jud sat down and rested his hat.

A tall, lank woman, smoking a cob pipe which had grown black with age
and Samsonian in strength, came from the next room. She merely ducked
her long, sharp nose at Jud and, pretending to be busily engaged
around the room, listened closely to all that was said.

Jud told the latest news, spoke of the weather and made many familiar
comments as he talked. Then he began to draw out the man and woman.
They were poor, child-burdened and dissatisfied. Gradually,
carefully, he talked mill and the blessings of it. He drew glorious
pictures of the house he would take them to, its conveniences--the
opportunities of the town for them all. He took up the case of each
of the six children, running from the tot of six to the girl of
twenty, and showed what they could earn.

In all it amounted to sixteen dollars a week.

"You sho'ly don't mean it comes to sixteen dollars ev'y week," said
the woman, taking the cob pipe out for the first time, long enough to
spit and wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, "an' all in silver
an' all our'n?" she asked. "Why that thar is mo' money'n we've seed
this year. What do you say to tryin' it, Josiah?"

Josiah was willing. "You see," he added, "we needn't stay thar
longer'n a year or so. We'll git the money an' then come back an' buy
a good piece of land."

Suddenly he stopped and fired this point blank at Jud: "But see heah,
Mister-man, is thar any niggers thar? Do we hafter wuck with
niggers?"

Jud looked indignant. It was enough.

At the end of an hour the family head had signed for a five years'
contract. They would move the next week.

"Cash--think of it--cash ever' week. An' in silver, too," said the
woman. "Why, I dunno hardly how it'll feel. I'm afeared it mou't gin
me the eetch."

Jud, when he left, had induced their parents to sell five children
into slavery for five years.

It meant for life.

And both parents declared when he left that never before had they
"seed sech a nice man."

Jud had nearly reached the town when he passed, high up on the level
plateau by which the mountain road now ran, the comfortable home of
Elder Butts. Peach and apple trees adorned the yard, while bee-hives
sat in a corner under the shade of them behind the cottage. The
tinkle of a sheep bell told of a flock of sheep nearby. A neatly
painted new wagon stood under the shed by the house, and all around
was an air o