CHAPTER II
A DRY-SALT MAN
Joe was afoot early. His mother came to the place in the fence where thegate once stood to give him a last word of comfort, and to bewail againher selfishness in sending him away to serve as bondboy under the hardhand of Isom Chase. Joe cheered her with hopeful pictures of the future,when the old home should be redeemed and the long-dwelling shadow oftheir debt to Isom cleared away and paid. From the rise in the roadwhich gave him the last sight of the house Joe looked back and saw herwith her head bowed to the topmost rail of the fence, a figure ofdejection and woe in the security which she had purchased for herself atsuch a heavy price.
Although Joe moved briskly along his way, his feet as light as if theycarried him to some destination of certain felicity, there was a cloudupon his heart. This arrangement which his mother had made in an hour ofpanic had disordered his plans and troubled the bright waters of hisdreams. Plans and dreams were all his riches. They were the solepatrimony of value handed down from Peter Newbolt, the Kentuckygentleman, who had married below his state and carried his youngmountain wife away to the Missouri woods to escape the censure of familyand criticism of friends.
That was the only legacy, indeed, that Joe was conscious of, buteverybody else was aware that old Peter had left him something even moredangerous than dreams. That was nothing less than a bridling,high-minded, hot-blooded pride--a thing laughable, the neighbors said,in one so bitterly and hopelessly poor.
"The pore folks," the neighbors called the Newbolts in speaking of themone to another, for in that community of fairly prosperous people therewas none so poor as they. The neighbors had magnified their misfortuneinto a reproach, and the "pore folks" was a term in which they foundmuch to compensate their small souls for the slights which old Peter, inhis conscious superiority, unwittingly put upon them.
To the end of his days Peter never had been wise enough to forget thatnature had endowed him, in many ways, above the level of the world towhich Fate had chained his feet, and his neighbors never had been kindenough to forget that he was poor.
Even after Peter was dead Joe suffered for the family pride. He wasstill spoken of, far and near in that community, as the "pore folks'sboy." Those who could not rise to his lofty level despised him becausehe respected the gerund, and also said _were_ where they said _was_, and_there are_, where usage made it _they is_. It was old Peter'sbig-headedness and pride, they said. What business had the pore folks'sboy with the speech of a school-teacher or minister in his mouth? His"coming" and his "going," indeed! Huh, it made 'em sick.
Joe had lived a lonely, isolated life on account of the family povertyand pride. He was as sensitive as a poet to the boorish brutality, andhis poor, unlettered, garrulous mother made it worse for him by herboasting of his parts. She never failed to let it be known that he hadread the Bible through, "from back to back," and the _CottageEncyclopedia_, and the _Imitation of Christ_, the three books in theNewbolt library.
People had stood by and watched Peter Newbolt at his schemes and dreamsfor many a year, and all the time they had seen him growing poorer andpoorer, and marveled that he never appeared to realize it himself. Justas a great many men spend their lives following the delusion that theycan paint or write, and waste their energies and resources on that falseand destructive idea, Peter had held the dream that he was singled outto revolutionize industry by his inventions.
He had invented a self-winding clock which, outside his own shop and inthe hands of another, would not wind; a self-binding reaper that, in hisneighbor's field, would not perform its part; and a lamp that wasdesigned to manufacture the gas that it burned from the water in itsbowl, but which dismally and ignobly failed. He had contrived andpatented a machine for milking cows, which might have done all that wasclaimed for it if anybody--cows included--could have been induced togive it a trial, and he had fiddled around with perpetual motion untilthe place was a litter of broken springs and rusty wheels.
Nothing had come of all this pother but rustic entertainment, althoughhe demonstrated the truth of his calculations by geometry, and appliedGreek names to the things which he had done and hoped to do. All thishad eaten up his energies, and his fields had gone but half tilled.Perhaps back of all Peter's futile strivings there had lain the germ ofsome useful thing which, if properly directed, might have grown into thefortune of his dreams. But he had plodded in small ways, and had died atlast, in debt and hopeless, leaving nothing but a name of reproach whichlived after him, and even hung upon his son that cool April morning ashe went forward to assume the penance that his mother's act had set forhim to bear.
And the future was clouded to Joe Newbolt now, like a window-pane withfrost upon it, where all had been so clear in his calculations but a daybefore. In his heart he feared the ordeal for Isom Chase was a man ofevil repute.
Long ago Chase's first wife had died, without issue, cursed to her gravebecause she had borne him no sons to labor in his fields. Lately he hadmarried another, a woman of twenty, although he was well along the roadto sixty-five himself. His second wife was a stranger in that community,the daughter of a farmer named Harrison, who dwelt beyond thecounty-seat.
Chase's homestead was a place pleasant enough for the abode ofhappiness, in spite of its grim history and sordid reputation. The markof thrift was about it, orchards bloomed upon its fair slopes, itshedges graced the highways like cool, green walls, not a leaf in excessupon them, not a protruding bramble. How Isom Chase got all the workdone was a matter of unceasing wonder, for nothing tumbled to ruinthere, nothing went to waste. The secret of it was, perhaps, that whenChase _did_ hire a man he got three times as much work out of him as alaborer ordinarily performed.
There were stories abroad that Chase was as hard and cruel to his youngwife as he had been to his old, but there was no better warrant for themthan his general reputation. It was the custom in those days for a womanto suffer greater indignities and cruelties than now without publiccomplaint. There never had been a separation of man and wife in thatcommunity, there never had been a suit for divorce. Doubtless there wereas many unhappy women to the square mile there as in other places, butcustom ruled that they must conceal their sorrows in their breasts.
To all of these things concerning Isom Chase, Joe Newbolt was nostranger. He knew, very well indeed, the life that lay ahead of him asthe bondboy of that old man as he went forward along the dew-moist roadthat morning.
Early as it was, Isom Chase had been out of bed two hours or more whenJoe arrived. The scents of frying food came out of the kitchen, and Isomhimself was making a splash in a basin of water--one thing that he couldafford to be liberal with three times a day--on the porch near the opendoor.
Joe had walked three miles, the consuming fires of his growing body weredemanding food. The odors of breakfast struck him with keen relish as hewaited at the steps of the porch, unseen by Isom Chase, who had liftedhis face from the basin with much snorting, and was now drying it on acoarse brown towel.
"Oh, you're here," said he, seeing Joe as he turned to hang up thetowel. "Well, come on in and eat your breakfast. We ought to 'a' been inthe field nearly an hour ago."
Hungry as he was, Joe did not advance to accept the invitation, whichwas not warmed by hospitality, indeed, but sounded rather like acommand. He stood where he had stopped, and pushed his flap-brimmed hatback from his forehead, in nervous movement of decision. Chase turned,half-way to the door, looking back at his bound boy with impatience.
"No need for you to be bashful. This is home for a good while to come,"said he.
"I'm not so very bashful," Joe disclaimed, placing the little roll whichcontained his one extra shirt on the wash-bench near the door, takingoff his hat, then, and standing serious and solemn before his newmaster.
"Well, I don't want to stand here waitin' on you and dribble away theday, for I've got work to do!" said Isom sourly.
"Yes, sir," said Joe, yielding the point respectfully, but standing hisground; "but before I go across your doorst
ep, and sit at your table andbreak bread with you, I want you to understand my position in thismatter."
"It's all settled between your mother and me," said Chase impatiently,drawing down his bayoneted eyebrows in a frown, "there's no understandingto come to between me and you--you've got nothing to say in thetransaction. You're bound out to me for two years and three months at tendollars a month and all found, and that settles it."
"No, it don't settle it," said Joe with rising heat; "it only begins it.Before I put a bite in my mouth in this house, or set my hand to anywork on this place, I'm going to lay down the law to you, Mr. Chase, andyou're going to listen to it, too!"
"Now, Joe, you've got too much sense to try to stir up a row and rousehard feelin's between us at the start," said Isom, coming forward withhis soft-soap of flattery and crafty conciliation.
"If I hadn't 'a' known that you was the smartest boy of your ageanywhere around here, do you suppose I'd have taken you in this way?"
"You scared mother into it; you didn't give me a chance to say anything,and you took an underhanded hold," charged Joe, his voice trembling withscarce-controlled anger. "It wasn't right, Isom, it wasn't fair. Youknow I could hire out any day for more than ten dollars a month, and youknow I'd never let mother go on the county as long as I was able to lifta hand."
"Winter and summer through, Joe--you must consider that," argued Isom,giving his head a twist which was meant to be illustrative of deepwisdom.
"You knew she was afraid of being thrown on the county," said Joe, "yousneaked in when I wasn't around and scared her up so she'd do mostanything."
"Well, you don't need to talk so loud," cautioned Isom, turning anuneasy, cross look toward the door, from which the sound of a light stepfled.
"I'll talk loud enough for you to hear me, and understand what I mean,"said Joe. "I could run off and leave you, Isom, if I wanted to, butthat's not my way. Mother made the bargain, I intend to live up to it,and let her have what little benefit there is to be got out of it. But Iwant you to know what I think of you at the start, and the way I feelabout it. I'm here to work for mother, and keep that old roof over herhead that's dearer to her than life, but I'm not your slave nor yourservant in any sense of the word."
"It's all the same to me," said Isom, dropping his sham front ofplacation, lifting his finger to accent his words, "but you'll work,understand that--you'll _work_!"
"Mother told me," said Joe not in the least disturbed by this glimpse ofIsom in his true guise, "that you had that notion in your mind, Isom.She said you told her you could thrash me if you wanted to do it, but Iwant to tell you----"
"It's the law," cut in Isom. "I can do it if I see fit."
"Well, don't ever try it," said Joe, drawing a long breath. "That wasthe main thing I wanted to say to you, Isom--don't ever try that!"
"I never intended to take a swingle-tree to you, Joe," said Isom,forcing his dry face into a grin. "I don't see that there ever need beany big differences between me and you. You do what's right by me andI'll do the same by you."
Isom spoke with lowered voice, a turning of the eyes toward the kitchendoor, as if troubled lest this defiance of his authority might have beenheard within, and the seeds of insubordination sown in anotherbond-slave's breast.
"I'll carry out mother's agreement with you to the best of my ability,"said Joe, moving forward as if ready now to begin.
"Then come on in and eat your breakfast," said Isom.
Isom led the way into the smoky kitchen, inwardly more gratified thandispleased over this display of spirit. According to the agreementbetween them, he had taken under bond-service the Widow Newbolt's "minormale child," but it looked to him as if some mistake had been made inthe delivery.
"He's a man!" exulted Isom in his heart, pleased beyond measure that hehad bargained better than he had known.
Joe put his lean brown hand into the bosom of his shirt and brought outa queer, fat little book, leather-bound and worn of the corners. This heplaced on top of his bundle, then followed Chase into the kitchen wherethe table was spread for breakfast.
Mrs. Chase was busy straining milk. She did not turn her head, nor givethe slightest indication of friendliness or interest in Joe as he tookthe place pointed out by Chase. Chase said no word of introduction. Heturned his plate over with a businesslike flip, took up the platterwhich contained two fried eggs and a few pieces of bacon, scraped offhis portion, and handed the rest to Joe.
In addition to the one egg each, and the fragments of bacon, there weresodden biscuits and a broken-nosed pitcher holding molasses. A cup ofroiled coffee stood ready poured beside each plate, and that was thebreakfast upon which Joe cast his curious eyes. It seemed absurdlyinadequate to the needs of two strong men, accustomed as Joe was to foureggs at a meal, with the stays of life which went with them inproportion.
Mrs. Chase did not sit at the table with them, nor replenish the emptyplatter, although Joe looked expectantly and hungrily for her to do so.She was carrying pans of milk into the cellar, and did not turn her headonce in their direction during the meal.
Joe rose from the table hungry, and in that uneasy state of body beganhis first day's labor on Isom Chase's farm. He hoped that dinner mightrepair the shortcomings of breakfast, and went to the table eagerly whenthat hour came.
For dinner there was hog-jowl and beans, bitter with salt, yellow withsalt, but apparently greatly to the liking of Isom, whose natural foodseemed to be the very essence of salt.
"Help yourself, eat plenty," he invited Joe.
Jowls and beans were cheap; he could afford to be liberal with thatmeal. Generosity in regard to that five-year-old jowl cost him scarcelya pang.
"Thank you," said Joe politely. "I'm doing very well."
A place was laid for Mrs. Chase, as at breakfast, but she did not jointhem at the table. She was scalding milk crocks and pans, her face wasred from the steam. As she bent over the sink the uprising vapor movedher hair upon her temples like a wind.
"Ain't you goin' to eat your dinner, Ollie?" inquired Isom withconsiderable lightness, perhaps inspired by the hope that she was not.
"I don't feel hungry right now," she answered, bending over her steamingpan of crocks.
Isom did not press her on the matter. He filled up his plate again withbeans and jowl, whacking the grinning jawbone with his knife to free theclinging shreds of meat.
Accustomed as he had been all his life to salt fare, that meal wasbeyond anything in that particular of seasoning that Joe ever hadtasted. The fiery demand of his stomach for liquid dilution of hissaline repast made an early drain on his coffee; when he had swallowedthe last bean that he was able to force down, his cup was empty. He casthis eyes about inquiringly for more.
"We only drink one cup of coffee at a meal here," explained Isom, arebuke in his words for the extravagance of those whose loose habitscarried them beyond that abstemious limit.
"All right; I guess I can make out on that," said Joe.
There was a pitcher of water at his hand, upon which he drew heavily,with the entire good-will and approbation of Isom. Then he took his hatfrom the floor at his feet and went out, leaving Isom hammering again atthe jowl, this time with the handle of his fork, in the hope ofdislodging a bit of gristle which clung to one end.
Joe's hope leaped ahead to supper, unjustified as the flight was by theday's developments. Human creatures could not subsist longer than a mealor two on such fare as that, he argued; there must be a change verysoon, of course.
It was a heavy afternoon for Joe. He was weary from the absolute lack ofnourishment when the last of the chores was done long after dusk, andIsom announced that they would go to the house for supper.
The supper began with soup, made from the left-over beans and thehog's jaw of dinner. There it swam, that fleshless, long-toothed,salt-reddened bone, the most hateful piece of animal anatomy that Joeever fixed his hungry eyes upon. And supper ended as it began; withsoup. There was nothing else behind it, save some hard bread to soak in
it, and its only savor was salt.
Isom seemed to be satisfied with, even cheered by, his liquidrefreshment. His wife came to her place at the table when they werealmost through, and sat stirring a bowl of the mixture of bread and thinsoup, her eyes set in abstracted stare in the middle of the table, farbeyond the work of her hands. She did not speak to Joe; he did notundertake any friendly approaches.
Joe never had seen Mrs. Chase before that day, neighbors though they hadbeen for months. She appeared unusually handsome to Joe, with her fairskin, and hair colored like ripe oats straw. She wore a plait of it asbig as his wrist coiled and wound around her head.
For a little while after finishing his unsatisfying meal, Joe satwatching her small hand turning the spoon in her soup. He noted thethinness of her young cheeks, in which there was no marvel, seeing thefare upon which she was forced to live. She seemed to be unconscious ofhim and Isom. She did not raise her eyes.
Joe got up in a little while and left them, going to the porch to lookfor his bundle and his book. They were gone. He came back, standinghesitatingly in the door.
"They're in your room upstairs," said Mrs. Chase without turning herhead to look at him, still leaning forward over her bowl.
"I'll show you where it is," Isom offered.
He led the way up the stairs which opened from the kitchen, carrying asmall lamp in his hand.
Joe's room was over the kitchen. It was bleak and bare, its blackrafters hung with spiderwebs, plastered with the nests of wasps. Adormer window jutted toward the east like a hollow eye, designed, nodoubt, and built by Isom Chase himself, to catch the first gleam ofmorning and throw it in the eyes of the sleeping hired-hand, whose bedstood under it.
Isom came down directly, took his lantern, and went to the barn to lookafter a new-born calf. Where there was profit, such as he counted it, ingentleness, Isom Chase could be as tender as a mother. Kind words andcaresses, according to his experience, did not result in any more workout of a wife so he spared them the young woman at the table, as he haddenied them the old one in her grave.
As Isom hurried out into the soft night, with a word about the calf,Ollie made a bitter comparison between her lot and that of the animalsin the barn. Less than six months before that gloomy night she had cometo that house a bride, won by the prospect of ease and independencewhich Chase had held out to her in the brief season of his adroitcourtship. The meanest men sometimes turn out to be the nimblestcock-pheasants during that interesting period, and, like those vainbirds of the jungles, they strut and dance and cut dazzling capersbefore the eyes of the ladies when they want to strike up a matrimonialbargain.
Isom Chase had done that. He had been a surprising lover for a dry manof his years, spurring around many a younger man in the contest forOllie's hand. Together with parental encouragement and her own vaindreams, she had not found it hard to say the word that made her hiswife. But the gay feathers had fallen from him very shortly after theirwedding day, revealing the worm which they had hidden; the bright colorsof his courtship parade had faded like the fustian decorations of acarnival in the rain.
Isom was a man of bone and dry skin, whose greed and penury had starvedhis own soul. He had brought her there and put burdens upon her, withthe assurance that it would be only for a little while, until somebodycould be hired to take the work off her hands. Then he had advanced theplea of hard times, when the first excuse had worn out; now he haddropped all pretenses. She was serving, as he had married her to serve,as he had brought her there in unrecompensed bondage to serve, and hopewas gone from her horizon, and her tears were undried upon her cheeks.
Isom had profited by a good day's work from Joe, and he had not beenobliged to drive him to obtain it. So he was in great spirits when hecame back from the barn, where he had found the calf coming on sturdilyand with great promise. He put out the lantern and turned the lamp downa shade seeing that it was consuming a twentieth more oil than necessaryto light Ollie about her work. Then he sat down beside the table,stretching his long legs with a sigh.
Ollie was washing the few dishes which had served for supper, movingbetween table and sink with quick competence, making a neat figure inthe somber room. It was a time when a natural man would have filled hispipe and brought out the weekly paper, or sat and gossiped a comfortablehour with his wife. But Isom never had cheered his atrophied nerves witha whiff of tobacco, and as for the county paper, or any paper whateverexcept mortgages and deeds, Isom held all of them to be frauds andextravagances which a man was better off without.
"Well, what do you think of the new hand?" asked Isom, following herwith his eyes.
"I didn't pay any particular notice to him," said she, her back towardhim as she stood scraping a pan at the sink.
"Did you hear what he said to me this morning when he was standin' thereby the steps?"
"No, I didn't hear," listlessly, indifferently.
"H'm--I thought you was listening."
"I just looked out to see who it was."
"No difference if you did hear, Ollie," he allowed generously--for Isom."A man's wife ought to share his business secrets, according to my wayof lookin' at it; she's got a right to know what's going on. Well, Itell you that chap talked up to me like a man!"
Isom smacked his lips over the recollection. The promise of it was sweetto his taste.
Ollie's heart stirred a little. She wondered if someone had entered thathouse at last who would be able to set at defiance its stern decrees.She hoped that, if so, this breach in the grim wall might let somesunlight in time into her own bleak heart. But she said nothing to Isom,and he talked on.
"I made a good pick when I lit on that boy," said he, with that old wisetwist of the head; "the best pick in this county, by a long shot. Ichoose a man like I pick a horse, for the blood he shows. A bloodedhorse will endure where a plug will fall down, and it's the same waywith a man. Ollie, don't you know that boy's got as good a strain in himas you'll find in this part of the country?"
"I never saw him before today, I don't know his folks," said she,apparently little interested in her husband's find.
Isom sat silent for a while, looking at the worn floor.
"Well, he's bound out to me for two years and more," said he, thecomfort of it in his hard, plain face. "I'll have a steady hand that Ican depend on now. That's a boy that'll do his duty; no doubt in my mindabout that. It may go against the grain once in a while, Ollie, like ourduty does for all of us sometimes; but, no matter how it tastes to him,that boy Joe, he'll face it.
"He's not one of the kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, orsteal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him.He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straightas the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, and thebest of it, too."
"He brought a funny little Bible with him," said Ollie in low voice, asif communing with herself.
"Funny?" said Isom. "Is that so?"
"So little and fat," she explained. "I never saw one like it before. Itwas there on the bench this morning with his bundle. I put it up by hisbed."
"Hum-m," said Isom reflectively, as if considering it deeply. Then:"Well, I guess it's all right."
Isom sat a good while, fingering his stiff beard. He gave no surfaceindication of the thoughts which were working within him, for he wasunlike those sentimental, plump, thin-skinned people who cannot concealtheir emotions from the world. Isom might have been dreaming of gain, orhe might have been contemplating the day of loss and panic, for all thathis face revealed. Sun and shadow alike passed over it, as rain andblast and summer sun pass over and beat upon a stone, leaving no markbehind save in that slow and painful wear which one must live a centuryto note. He looked up at his wife at length, his hand still in hisbeard, and studied her silently.
"I'm not a hard man, Ollie, like some people give me the name of being,"he complained, with more gentleness in his voice than she had heardsince he was courting her. He still studied her, as if he expecte
d herto uphold common report and protest that he was hard and cruel-drivingin his way. She said nothing; Isom proceeded to give himself the goodrating which the world denied.
"I'm not half as mean as some envious people would make out, if theycould find anybody to take stock in what they say. If I'm not ashoney-mouthed as some, that's because I've got more sense than todiddle-daddle my time away in words when there's so much to do. I'llshow you that I'm as kind at heart, Ollie, as any man in this county, ifyou'll stand by me and do your part of what's to be done without blacklooks and grumbles and growls.
"I'm a good many years older than you, and maybe I'm not as light-footedand light-headed as you'd like a husband to be, but I've got weight tome where it counts. I could buy out two-thirds of the young fellers inthis county, Ollie, all in a bunch."
"Yes, Isom, I guess you could," she allowed, a weary drag in her voice.
"I'll put a woman in to do the work here in the fall, when I make a turnof my crops and money comes a little freer than it does right now," hepromised. "Interest on my loans is behind in a good many cases, andthere's no use crowdin' 'em to pay till they sell their wheat and hogs.If I had the ready money in hand to pay wages, Ollie, I'd put a niggerwoman in here tomorrow and leave you nothing to do but oversee. You'llhave a fine easy time of it this fall, Ollie, when I turn my crops."
Ollie drained the dishpan and wrung out the cloths. These she hung on aline to dry. Isom watched her with approval, pleased to see her sohousewifely and neat.
"Ollie, you've come on wonderful since I married you," said he. "Whenyou come here--do you recollect?--you couldn't hardly make a mess ofbiscuits that was fit to eat, and you knew next to nothing about milkand butter for all that you was brought up on a farm."
"Well, I've learned my lesson," said she, with a bitterness which passedover Isom's head.
Her back was turned to him, she was reaching to hang a utensil on thewall, so high above her head that she stood on tiptoe. Isom was notinsensible to the pretty lines of her back, the curve of her plump hips,the whiteness of her naked arms. He smiled.
"Well, it's worth money to you to know all these things," said he, "andI don't know but it's just as well for you to go on and do the work thissummer for the benefit of what's to be got out of it; you'll be all thebetter able to oversee a nigger woman when I put one in, and all thebetter qualified to take things into your own hands when I'm done and inthe grave. For I'll have to go, in fifteen or twenty years more," hesighed.
Ollie made no reply. She was standing with her back still turned towardhim, stripping down her sleeves. But the sigh which she gave breath tosounded loud in Isom's ears.
Perhaps he thought she was contemplating with concern the day when hemust give over his strivings and hoardings, and leave her widowed andalone. That may have moved him to his next excess of generosity.
"I'm going to let Joe help you around the house a good deal, Ollie,"said he. "He'll make it a lot easier for you this summer. He'll carrythe swill down to the hogs, and water 'em, and take care of the calves.That'll save you a good many steps in the course of the day."
Ollie maintained her ungrateful silence. She had heard promises before,and she had come to that point of hopelessness where she no longerseemed to care. Isom was accustomed to her silences, also; it appearedto make little difference to him whether she spoke or held her peace.
He sat there reflectively a little while; then got up, stretching hisarms, yawning with a noise like a dog.
"Guess I'll go to bed," said he.
He looked for a splinter on a stick of stove-wood, which he lit at thestove and carried to his lamp. At the door he paused, turned, and lookedat Ollie, his hand, hovering like a grub curved beside the chimney,shading the light from his eyes.
"So he brought a Bible, did he?"
"Yes."
"Well, he's welcome to it," said Isom. "I don't care what anybody thatworks for me reads--just so long as he _works_!"
Isom's jubilation over his bondboy set his young wife's curiosityastir. She had not noted any romantic or noble parts about the youth inthe casual, uninterested view which she had given him that day. To herthen he had appeared only a sprangling, long-bodied, long-legged,bony-shouldered, unformed lad whose hollow frame indicated a greatcapacity for food. Her only thought in connection with him had beenthat it meant another mouth to dole Isom's slender allowance out to,more scheming on her part to make the rations go round. It meantanother one to wash for, another bed to make.
She had thought of those things wearily that morning when she heard thenew voice at the kitchen door, and she had gone there for a moment tolook him over; for strange faces, even those of loutish farm-hands, wererefreshing in her isolated life. She had not heard what the lad wassaying to Isom, for the kitchen was large and the stove far away fromthe door, but she had the passing thought that there was a good deal ofearnestness or passion in the harangue for a farm-hand to be laying onhis early morning talk.
When she found the Bible lying there on top of Joe's hickory shirt, shehad concluded that he had been talking religion. She hoped that he wouldnot preach at his meals. The only religion that Ollie knew anything of,and not much of that, was a glum and melancholy kind, with frenziedshoutings of the preacher in it, and portentous shaking of the beard inthe shudderful pictures of the anguish of unrepentant death. So shehoped that he would not preach at his meals, for the house was sadenough, and terrible and gloomily hopeless enough, without the kind ofreligion that made the night deeper and the day longer in its dread.
Now Isom's talk about the lad's blood, and his expression of highconfidence in his fealty, gave her a pleasant topic of speculation. Didgood blood make men different from those who came of mongrel strain, inother points than that of endurance alone? Did it give men nobility andsympathy and loftiness, or was it something prized by those who hiredthem, as Isom seemed to value it in Joe, because it lent strength to thearms?
Ollie sat on the kitchen steps and turned all this over in her thoughtsafter Isom had gone to bed.
Perhaps in the new bondboy, who had come there to serve with her, shewould find one with whom she might talk and sometimes ease her heart.She hoped that it might be so, for she needed chatter and laughter andthe common sympathies of youth, as a caged bird requires the seed of itswild life. There was hope in the new farm-hand which swept into herheart like a refreshing breeze. She would look him over and sound himwhen he worked, choring between kitchen and barn.
Ollie had been a poor man's child. Isom had chosen her as he would haveselected a breeding-cow, because nature, in addition to giving her aform of singular grace and beauty, had combined therein the utilitarianindications of ability to plentifully reproduce her kind. Isom wantedher because she was alert and quick of foot, and strong to bear theburdens of motherhood; for even in the shadow of his decline he stillheld to the hope of his youth--that he might leave a son behind him toguard his acres and bring down his name.
Ollie was no deeper than her opportunities of life had made her. She hadno qualities of self-development, and while she had graduated from ahigh school and still had the ornate diploma among her simple treasures,learning had passed through her pretty ears like water through a funnel.It had swirled and choked there a little while, just long enough for herto make her "points" required for passing, then it had sped on and lefther unencumbered and free.
Her mother had always held Ollie's beauty a greater asset than mentalgraces, and this early appraisement of it at its trading value had madeOllie a bit vain and ambitious to mate above her family. Isom Chase hadheld out to her all the allurements of which she had dreamed, and shehad married him for his money. She had as well taken a stone to her softbosom in the hope of warming it into yielding a flower.
Isom was up at four o'clock next morning. A few minutes after him Olliestumbled down the stairs, heavy with the pain of broken sleep. Joe wassnoring above-stairs; the sound penetrated to the kitchen down thedoorless casement.
"Listen to that feller sawin'
gourds!" said Isom crabbedly.
The gloom of night was still in the kitchen; in the corner where thestove stood it was so dark that Ollie had to grope her way, yawningheavily, feeling that she would willingly trade the last year of herlife for one more hour of sleep that moist spring morning.
Isom mounted the kitchen stairs and roused Joe, lumbering down againstraightway and stringing the milk-pails on his arms without waiting tosee the result of his summons.
"Send him on down to the barn when he's ready," directed Isom, janglingaway in the pale light of early day.
Ollie fumbled around in her dark corner for kindling, and started a firein the kitchen stove with a great rattling of lids. Perhaps there wasmore alarm than necessary in this primitive and homely task, soundedwith the friendly intention of carrying a warning to Joe, who was makingno move to obey his master's call.
Ollie went softly to the staircase and listened. Joe's snore wasrumbling again, as if he traveled a heavy road in the land of dreams.She did not feel that she could go and shake him out of his sleep andwarn him of the penalty of such remission, but she called softly fromwhere she stood:
"Joe! You must get up, Joe!"
But her voice was not loud enough to wake a bird. Joe slept on, like aheavy-headed boor, and she went back to the stove to put the kettle onto boil. The issue of his recalcitration must be left between him andIsom. If he had good blood in him, perhaps he would fight when Isomlifted his hand and beat him out of his sleep, she reflected, hopingsimply that it would turn out that way.
Isom came back to the house in frothing wrath a quarter of an hourlater. There was no need to ask about Joe, for the bound boy's nostrilssounded his own betrayal.
Isom did not look at Ollie as he took the steep stairs four treads at astep. In a moment she heard the sleeper's bed squeaking in its ricketyold joints as her husband shook him and cut short his snore in themiddle of a long flourish.
"Turn out of here!" shouted Isom in his most terrible voice--which wasto Ollie's ears indeed a dreadful sound--"turn out and git into yourduds!"
Ollie heard the old bed give an extra loud groan, as if the sleeper haddrawn himself up in it with suddenness; following that came the quickscuffling of bare feet on the floor.
"Don't you touch me! Don't you lay hands on me!" she heard the bound boywarn, his voice still husky with sleep.
"I'll skin you alive!" threatened Isom. "You've come here to work, notto trifle your days away sleepin'. A good dose of strap-oil's what youneed, and I'm the man to give it to you, too!"
Isom's foot was heavy on the floor over her head, moving about as if insearch of something to use in the flagellation. Ollie stood with handsto her tumultuous bosom, pity welling in her heart for the lad who wasto feel the vigor of Isom's unsparing arm.
There was a lighter step upon the floor, moving across the room like asudden wind. The bound boy's voice sounded again, clear now and steady,near the top of the stairs where Isom stood.
"Put that down! Put that down, I tell you!" he commanded. "I warned younever to lift your hand against me. If you hit me with that I'll killyou in your tracks!"
Ollie's heart leaped at the words; hot blood came into her face with asurge. She clasped her hands to her breast in new fervor, and lifted herface as one speeding a thankful prayer. She had heard Isom Chasethreatened and defied in his own house, and the knowledge that one livedwith the courage to do what she had longed to do, lifted her heart andmade it glad.
She heard Isom growl something in his throat, muffled and low, which shecould not separate into words.
"Well, then, I'll let it pass--this time," said Joe. "But don't you everdo it any more. I'm a heavy sleeper sometimes, and this is an hour ortwo earlier than I am used to getting up; but if you'll call me loudenough, and talk like you were calling a man and not a dog, you'll haveno trouble with me. Now get out of here!"
Ollie could have shouted in the triumph of that moment. She shared thebound boy's victory and exulted in his high independence. Isom hadswallowed it like a coward; now he was coming down the stairs, snarlingin his beard, but his knotted fist had not enforced discipline; hiscoarse, distorted foot had not been lifted against his new slave. Shefelt that the dawn was breaking over that house, that one had come intoit who would ease her of its terrors.
Joe came along after Isom in a little while, slipping his suspendersover his lank shoulders as he went out of the kitchen door. He did notturn to Ollie with the morning's greetings, but held his face from herand hurried on, she thought, as if ashamed.
Ollie ran to the door on her nimble toes, the dawn of a smile on herface, now rosy with its new light, and looked after him as he hurriedaway in the brightening day. She stood with her hands clasped inattitude of pleasure, again lifting her face as if to speed a prayer.
"Oh, thank God for a _man_!" said she.
Isom was in a crabbed way at breakfast, sulky and silent. But his evilhumor did not appear to weigh with any shadow of trouble on Joe, who atewhat 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, shethought, to enable him to meet and pass off such a serious thing in thatuntroubled way. As she served the table, there being griddle-cakes ofcornmeal that morning to flank the one egg and fragments of rusty baconeach, she studied the boy's face carefully. She noted the high, clearforehead, the large nose, the fineness of the heavy, black hair whichlay shaggy upon his temples. She studied the long hands, the grave lineof 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 wasright about that. Let it be blood or what it might, she liked him. Hopeof the cheer that he surely would bring into that dark house quickenedher cheek to a color which had grown strange to it in those heavymonths.
Joe's efforts in the field must have been highly satisfactory to Isomthat forenoon, for the master of the house came to the table atdinner-time in quite a lively mood. The morning's unpleasantness seemedto have been forgotten. Ollie noticed her husband more than once duringthe meal measuring Joe's capabilities for future strength withcalculating, satisfied eyes. She sat at the table with them, takingminute note of Joe at closer range, studying him curiously, awed alittle by the austerity of his young face, and the melancholy of hiseyes, in which there seemed to lie the concentrated sorrow of manyforebears 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 fromJoe.
"Cook it with a jowl," ordered Isom; "they go fine together, and it'sgood for the blood."
Joe was beginning to yearn forward to Sunday, when he could go home tohis mother for a satisfying meal, of which he was sharply feeling theneed. It was a mystery to him how Isom kept up on that fare, so scantand unsatisfying, but he reasoned that it must be on account of therebeing so little of him but gristle and bone.
Joe looked ahead now to the term of his bondage under Isom; the prospectgave him an uneasy concern. He was afraid that the hard fare and harderwork would result in stunting his growth, like a young tree that hascome to a period of drought green and promising, and stands checked andblighted, never again to regain the hardy qualities which it needs toraise it up into the beauty of maturity.
The work gave him little concern; he knew that he could live and put onstrength through that if he had the proper food. So there would have tobe a change in the fare, concluded Joe, as he sat there while Isomdiscussed the merits of dandelion and jowl. It would have to come veryearly in his term of servitude, too. The law protected the bondman inthat, no matter how far it disregarded his rights a
nd human necessitiesin other ways. So thinking, he pushed away from the table and left theroom.
Isom drank a glass of water, smacked his dry lips over its excellencies,the greatest of them in his mind being its cheapness, and followed it byanother.
"Thank the Lord for water, anyhow!" said he.
"Yes, there's plenty of that," said Ollie meaningly.
Isom was as thick-skinned as he was sapless. Believing that hispenurious code was just, and his frugality the first virtue of his life,he was not ashamed of his table, and the outcast scraps upon it. But helooked at his young wife with a sharp drawing down of his spiked browsas he lingered there a moment, his cracked brown hands on the edge ofthe table, which he had clutched as he pushed his chair back. He seemedabout to speak a rebuke for her extravagance of desire. The frown on hisface foreshadowed it, but presently it lifted, and he nodded shrewdlyafter Joe.
"Give him a couple of eggs mornings after this," said he, "they've felloff to next to nothing in price, anyhow. And eat one yourself once in awhile, Ollie. I ain't one of these men that believe a woman don't needthe same fare as a man, once on a while, anyhow."
His generous outburst did not appear to move his wife's gratitude. Shedid not thank him by word or sign. Isom drank another glass of water,rubbed his mustache and beard back from his lips in quick, grindingtwists of his doubled hand.
"The pie-plant's comin' out fast," said he, "and I suppose we might aswell eat it--nothing else but humans will eat it--for there's no salefor it over in town. Seems like everybody's got a patch of it nowadays.
"Well, it's fillin', as the old woman said when she swallowed herthimble, and that boy Joe he's going to be a drain on me to feed, I cansee that now. I'll have to fill him up on something or other, and Iguess pie-plant's about as good as anything. It's cheap."
"Yes, but it takes sugar," ventured Ollie, rolling some crumbs betweenher fingers.
"You can use them molasses in the blue barrel," instructed Isom.
"It's about gone," said she.
"Well, put some water in the barrel and slosh it around--it'll come outsweet enough for a mess or two."
Isom got up from the table as he gave these economic directions, andstood a moment looking down at his wife.
"Don't you worry over feedin' that feller, Ollie," he advised. "I'llmanage that. I aim to keep him stout--I never saw a stouter feller forhis age than Joe--for I'm goin' to git a pile of work out of him thenext two years. I saw you lookin' him over this morning," said he,approvingly, as he might have sanctioned her criticism of a new horse,"and I could see you was lightin' on his points. Don't you think he'sall I said he was?"
"Yes," she answered, a look of abstraction in her eyes, her fingers busywith the crumbs on the cloth, "all you said of him--_and more_!"
The Bondboy Page 2