his arm. His gaze had grown harsh and repellent.

"But I am going into the judge's office," he answered. "I am going--"
Then he checked himself, baffled by the massive ignorance he confronted.

Amos Burr drew one shoulder from the fire and offered the other. A slow
steam rose from his smoking shirt, and the room was filled with the
odour of scorching cotton.

"Thar ain't much cash in that, I reckon," he said.

Nicholas took a step forward, still facing his father with obstinate
eyes. One of the books slipped from his arm and fell to the floor, with
open leaves, but he let it lie. He was watching his father's jaws as
they rose and fell over the quid of tobacco.

"No, there is not much cash in that," he repeated.

"Things have gone mighty hard," said Amos Burr. "It's been a bad year. I
ain't sayin' nothin' 'bout the work yo' ma an' Sairy Jane an' me have
done. That don't seem to count, somehow. But nothin' ain't come
straight, an' thar ain't a cent to pay the taxes. If we can't manage to
tide over this comin' winter thar'll have to be a mortgage in the
spring."

Sairy Jane began to cry softly. One of the children joined in.

"Give me time," said Nicholas breathlessly. "Give me time. I'll pay it
all in time." Then the sound of Sairy Jane's sobs maddened him and he
turned upon her with an oath. "Damn you! Can't you be quiet?"

It seemed to him that they were all closing upon him and that there was
no opening of escape.

Marthy Burr put down her iron and came to where he stood, laying her
hand upon his sleeve.

"Don't mind 'em, Nick," she said, and her sharp voice broke suddenly.
"Go ahead an' make a man of yo'self, mortgage or no mortgage."

Nicholas lifted his gaze from the floor and looked into his
stepmother's face. Then he looked at her hand as it lay upon his arm.
That trembling hand brought to him more fully than words, more clearly
than visions, the pathos of her life.

"Don't you worry, ma," he said quietly at last. "It'll be all right.
Don't you worry."

Then he let her hand slip from his shoulder and left the room.

He passed out upon the back porch and stood gazing vacantly across the
outlook.

It rained heavily, the drops descending in horizontal lengths like a
fantastic fall of colourless pine needles. Overhead the clouds were
black, impenetrable.

Through the falling rain he looked at the view before him, at the
overgrown yard, at the manure heaps near the stable, at the grim rows of
sta