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 p.r.o.nounced 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 h.e.l.l-fire into her belief and more melancholy pleasure out of it than any hard-sh.e.l.l 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 sorrowful hymns by day, as she moved about the house, in a voice that carried a mile. But for all the grimness in her creed, there was not a being alive with a softer heart. She would have divided her last square of corn-bread with the wayfarer at her door, without question of his worth or unworthiness, his dissension, or his faith.

"Mr. Chase was here this afternoon, Joe," said she as the lad began his supper.

"Well, I suppose he's going to put us out?"

Joe paused in the mixing of gravy and corn-bread--designed to be conveyed to his mouth on the blade of his knife--and lifted inquiring eyes to his mother's troubled face.

"No, son; we fixed it up," said she.

"You fixed it up?" he repeated, his eyes beaming with pleasure. "Is he going to give us another chance?"

"You go on and eat your supper, Joe; we'll talk it over when you're through. Lands, you must be tired and hungry after workin' so hard all afternoon!"

He was too hungry, perhaps, to be greatly troubled by her air of uneasiness and distraction. He bent over his plate, not noting that she sipped her coffee with a spoon, touching no food. At last he pushed back with a sigh of repletion, and smiled across at his mother.

"So you fixed it up with him?"

"Yes, I went into a dishonorable deal with Isom Chase," said she, "and I don't know what you'll say when you hear what's to be told to you, Joe."

"What do you mean by 'dishonorable deal'?" he asked, his face growing white.

"I don't know what you'll say, Joe, I don't know what you'll say!"

moaned she, shaking her head sorrowfully.

"Well, Mother, I can't make out what you mean," said he, baffled and mystified by her strange behavior.

"Wait--I'll show you."

She rose from the table and reached down a folded paper from among the soda packages and tins on the shelf. Saying no more, she handed it to him. Joe took it, wonder in his face, spread his elbows, and unfolded the doc.u.ment with its notarial seal.

Joe was ready at printed matter. He read fast and understandingly, and his face grew paler as his eyes ran on from line to line. When he came to the end, where his mother's wavering signature stood above that of Isom Chase, his head dropped a little lower, his hands lay listlessly, as if paralyzed, on the paper under his eyes. A sudden dejection seemed to settle over him, blighting his youth and buoyancy.

Mrs. Newbolt was making out to be busy over the stove. She lifted the lid of the kettle, and put it down with a clatter; she opened the stove and rammed the fire with needless severity with the poker, and it snapped back at her, shooting sparks against her hand.

"Mother, you've bound me out!" said he, his voice unsteady in its accusing note.

She looked at him, her hands starting out in a little movement of appeal. He turned from the table and sat very straight and stern in his chair, his gaunt face hollowed in shadows, his wild hair falling across his brow.

"Oh, I sold you! I sold you!" she wailed.

She sat again in her place at the table, spiritless and afraid, her hands limp in her lap.

"You've bound me out!" Joe repeated harshly, his voice rasping in his throat.

"I never meant to do it, Joe," she pleaded in weak defense; "but Isom, he said nothing else would save us from the county farm. I wanted to wait and ask you, Joe, and I told him I wanted to ask you, but he said it would be too late!"

"Yes. What else did he say?" asked Joe, his hands clenched, his eyes peering straight ahead at the wall.

She related the circ.u.mstances of Chase's visit, his threat of eviction, his declaration that she would become a county charge the moment that she set foot in the road.

"The old liar!" said Joe.

There seemed to be nothing more for her to say. She could make no defense of an act which stood before her in all its ugly selfishness.

Joe sat still, staring at the wall beyond the stove; she crouched forward in her chair, as if to shrink out of his sight.

Between them the little gla.s.s lamp stood, a droning, slow-winged brown beetle blundering against its chimney. Outside, the distant chant of newly wakened frogs sounded; through the open door the warm air of the April night came straying, bearing the incense of the fields and woodlands, where fires smoldered like sleepers sending forth their dreams.

His silence was to her the heaviest rebuke that he could have administered. Her remorse gathered under it, her contrition broke its bounds.

"Oh, I sold you, my own flesh and blood!" she cried, springing to her feet, lifting her long arms above her head.

"You knew what he was, Mother; you knew what it meant to be bound out to him for two long years and more. It wasn't as if you didn't know."

"I knew, I knew! But I done it, son, I done it! And I done it to save my own mis'able self. I ain't got no excuse, Joe, I ain't got no excuse at all."

"Well, Mother, you'll be safe here, anyhow, and I can stand it," said Joe, brightening a little, the tense severity of his face softening.

"Never mind; I can stand it, I guess."

"I'll never let you go to him--I didn't mean to do it--it wasn't fair the way he drove me into it!" said she.

She laid her hand, almost timidly, on her son's shoulder, and looked into his face. "I know you could take care of me and keep off of the county, even if Isom did put us out like he said he'd do, but I went and done it, anyhow. Isom led me into it, Joe; he wasn't fair."

"Yes, and you bound me out for about half what I'm worth to any man and could demand for my services anywhere, Mother," said Joe, the bitterness which he had fought down but a moment past surging up in him again.

"Lord forgive me!" she supplicated piteously. She turned suddenly to the table and s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper. "It wasn't fair--he fooled me into it!"

she repeated. "I'll tear it up, I'll burn it, and we'll leave this place and let him have it, and he can go on and do whatever he wants to with it--tear it down, burn it, knock it to pieces--for anything I care now!"

Joe restrained her as she went toward the stove, the doc.u.ment in her hand.

"Wait, Mother; it's a bargain. We're bound in honor to it, we can't back down now."

"I'll never let you do it!" she declared, her voice rising beyond her control. "I'll walk the roads and beg my bread first! I'll hoe in the fields, I'll wash folks' clothes for 'em like a n.i.g.g.e.r slave, I'll lay down my life, Joe, before I let you go into that murderin' man's hands!"

He took the paper from her hands gently.

"I've been thinking it over, Mother," said he, "and it might be worse--it might be a good deal worse. It gives me steady work, for one thing, and you can save most of my wages, counting on the eggs you'll sell, and the few turkeys and things. After a while you can get a cow and make b.u.t.ter, and we'll be better off, all around. We couldn't get out of it, anyway, Mother. He's paid you money, and you've signed your name to the contract along with Isom. If we were to pull out and leave here, Isom could send the sheriff after me and bring me back, I guess.

Even if he couldn't do that, he could sue you, Mother, and make no end of trouble. But we wouldn't leave if we could. It wouldn't be quite honorable, or like Newbolts at all, to break our contract that way."

"But he'll drive you to the grave, Joe!"

A slow smile spread over his face. "I don't think Isom would find me a good driving horse," said he.

"He said if you done well," she told him, brightening as she clutched at that small stay of justification, "he'd let you work this place on shares till you paid off the loan. That was one reason----"

"Of course," said Joe, a cheerfulness in his voice which his pale cheeks did not sustain, "that was one thing I had in mind when I spoke. It'll all come out right. You've done the wisest thing there was to be done, Mother, and I'll fulfill your agreement to the last day."

"You're a brave boy, Joe; you're a credit to the memory of your pap,"