Chase said that he had not taken a mortgage on sentiment, but he had made capital out of it in the end, trading upon her affection for the old home and its years-long associations. As the gloomy evening deepened and she stood in the door watching for her son’s return, she saw through the scheme of Isom Chase. She never would have been thrown on the county with Joe to depend on; the question of his ability to support both of them admitted of no debate. 13
Joe’s industry spoke for that, and that was Isom Chase’s reason for wanting him. Isom wanted him because he was strong and trustworthy, honest and faithful. And she had bargained him in selfishness and sold him in cowardice, without a word from him, as she might have sold a cow to pay a pressing debt.
The bargain was binding. Judge Little had pressed that understanding of it upon her. It was as irrevocable as a deed signed and sealed. Joe could not break it; she could not set it aside. Isom Chase was empowered with all the authority of absolute master.
“If he does anything that deserves thrashing for, I’ve got a right to thrash him, do you understand that?” Isom had said as he stood there in the presence of Judge Little, buttoning his coat over the document which transferred Joe’s services to him.
Her heart had contracted at the words, for the cruelty of Isom Chase was notorious. A bound boy had died in his service not many years before, kicked by a mule, it was said. There had been mutterings at that time, and talk of an investigation, which never came to a head because the bound lad was nobody, taken out of the county home. But the fear in the widow’s heart that moment was not for her son; it was for Isom Chase.
“Lord ’a’ mercy, Mr. Chase, you mustn’t never strike Joe!” she warned. “You don’t know what kind of a boy he is, Mr. Chase. I’m afraid he might up and hurt you maybe, if you ever done that.”
“I’ll handle him in my own way,” with portentous significance; “but I want you to understand my rights fully at the start.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered meekly.
Joe was coming now, pitchfork over his shoulder, from the field where he had been burning corn-stalks, making ready 14 for the plow. She hastened to set out a basin of water on the bench beside the kitchen door, and turned then into the room to light the lamp and place it on the waiting table.
Joe appeared at the door, drying his hands on the dangling towel. He was a tall, gaunt-faced boy, big-boned, raw-jointed, the framework for prodigious strength. His shoulders all but filled the narrow doorway, his crown came within an inch of its lintel. His face was glowing from the scrubbing which he had given it with home-made lye soap, his drenched hair fell in heavy locks down his deep forehead.
“Well, Mother, what’s happened?” he asked, noting her uneasiness as she sat waiting him at the table, the steaming coffee-pot at her hand.
“Sit down and start your supper, son, and we’ll talk as we go along,” said she.
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 pronounced 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 hell-fire into her belief and more melancholy pleasure out of it than any hard-shell 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. 15
“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 document with its notarial seal.
Joe was ready at printed matter. He read fast and understandingly, 16 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 circumstances 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 17 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.