th the Committee of Safety
put such power into his hands. There was one thing about it, he told
himself: From that time forward he and his family would have more and
better food to eat than they had ever had before, and be better clothed.
If the scheme he had just put into operation would work once, he was
positive it would succeed every time it was tried.

"There, now!" exclaimed Bud triumphantly, as he walked into his own
house and dropped the bags by the side of his wife's chair. "Two heads
are better'n one, if one is a woman's head. There's meal an' taters an'
chickens; now go on an' dish up a good supper. I'll get your dress
to-morrer."

"Where you goin' to get it?" inquired his wife, knocking the ashes from
her pipe and rising from her seat. The knowledge that there was food in
the house put a little energy into her, and at the same time quieted the
complaining children.

"I'm workin' this job for all there is into it, let me tell you,"
replied Bud, taking his wife's pipe from her hand and filling it for his
own benefit. "I ketched old preacher Toby with a babolition paper in his
hand, an' that's the way I come to get the grub an' tobacker. To-morrer
I'll go an' call on the storekeeper. He told me t'other day that he
wouldn't trust me no more, but I kinder think he'll change his mind when
I tell him that I'm onto that committee. An' then there's that Meth'dist
preacher, Elder Bowen, who I suspicion gin Toby that babolition
_Trybune._ There's a heap of hams an' side-meat in that smokehouse of
his'n, an' it sorter runs in my mind that I can talk him into givin' me
some of it."

"An' did you speak to Toby about the money they say he's got hid
somewheres?" asked Mrs. Goble, who was dressing two of the chickens
preparatory to consigning them to the kettle, which she had placed upon
the coals. "What business has he got to have money when white folks--"

"Set me down for a fuel!" exclaimed Bud, hitting his rheumatic leg such
a slap that he could hardly repress the howl of anguish that arose to
his lips. "There I was talkin' to him for as much as ten or fifteen
minutes an' never onct thought of that money. Well, there's another day
comin', an' Toby'll have to hand that money over or get whopped."

"An' if I was you," continued his wife, "I wouldn't say a blessed word
to nobody about it. Keep your business to yourself, kase if you don't,
them that helps you will want to share in what you get."

"Susie, you've got a