Mrs. Leckler
knew this, but like the good, patient little wife that she was, she
went on paying her poor tribute of advice and admiration. To-day her
husband's mind was particularly troubled,--as usual, too, over a
matter of principle. Mrs. Leckler came at his call.

"Mrs. Leckler," he said, "I am troubled in my mind. I--in fact, I am
puzzled over a matter that involves either the maintaining or
relinquishing of a principle."

"Well, Mr. Leckler?" said his wife, interrogatively.

"If I had been a scheming, calculating Yankee, I should have been rich
now; but all my life I have been too generous and confiding. I have
always let principle stand between me and my interests." Mr. Leckler
took himself all too seriously to be conscious of his pun, and went
on: "Now this is a matter in which my duty and my principles seem to
conflict. It stands thus: Josh has been doing a piece of plastering
for Mr. Eckley over in Lexington, and from what he says, I think that
city rascal has misrepresented the amount of work to me and so cut
down the pay for it. Now, of course, I should not care, the matter of
a dollar or two being nothing to me; but it is a very different matter
when we consider poor Josh." There was deep pathos in Mr. Leckler's
tone. "You know Josh is anxious to buy his freedom, and I allow him a
part of whatever he makes; so you see it's he that's affected. Every
dollar that he is cheated out of cuts off just so much from his
earnings, and puts further away his hope of emancipation."

If the thought occurred to Mrs. Leckler that, since Josh received only
about one-tenth of what he earned, the advantage of just wages would
be quite as much her husband's as the slave's, she did not betray it,
but met the naive reasoning with the question, "But where does the
conflict come in, Mr. Leckler?"

"Just here. If Josh knew how to read and write and cipher--"

"Mr. Leckler, are you crazy!"

"Listen to me, my dear, and give me the benefit of your judgment. This
is a very momentous question. As I was about to say, if Josh knew
these things, he could protect himself from cheating when his work is
at too great a distance for me to look after it for him."

"But teaching a slave--"

"Yes, that's just what is against my principles. I know how public
opinion and the law look at it. But my conscience rises up in
rebellion every time I think of that poor black man being cheated out
of his earnings. Really, Mrs. Leckler, I think I ma