ght, as he listened to Miner's reply.
He came up to the well, where Morty brought him a clean towel, and
waited to show him into the kitchen.

Miner was just sitting down to the table when Morris entered. His
sleeves were rolled up. He had his old white hat on his head. He lounged
upon one elbow on the table. His whole bearing was swinish.

"What do I care?" he growled, as if in reply to some low-voiced warning
his wife had uttered. "If he don't like it, he can lump it, and if you
don't like my ways," he said, turning upon her, "all you've got to do is
to say so, and I git out."

Morris was amazed at all this. He could not persuade himself that he had
rightly understood what had been said. There was something beneath the
man's words which puzzled him and forbade his inquiry. He sat down near
the oldest child and opposite Mrs. Miner. Miner began to eat, and Morris
was speaking pleasantly to the child nearest him, when he heard an oath
and a slap. He looked up to see Miner's hat falling from Mrs. Miner's
cheek.

She had begun a silent grace, and her husband had thrown his hat in her
face. She kept her eyes upon her plate, and her lips moved as if in
prayer, though a flush of red streamed up her neck and covered her
cheek.

Morris leaped up, his eyes burning into Miner's face. "H'yere!" he
shouted, "what's all this? Did you strike her?"

"Set down!" roared Miner. "You're too fresh."

"I'll let you know how fresh I am," said the young fellow, shaking his
brawny fist in Miner's face.

Mrs. Miner rose, with a ghastly smile on her face, which was now as pale
as it had been flushed. "Please don't mind him; he's only fooling."
Morris looked at her and understood a little of her feeling as a wife
and mother. He sat down. "Well, I'll let him know the weight of my fist,
if he does anything more of that business when I'm around," he said,
looking at her, and then at her husband. "I didn't grow up in a family
where things like that go on. If you'll just say the word, I--I'll----"

"Please don't do anything," she said, and he saw that he had better not,
if he wished to shield her from further suffering. The meal proceeded in
silence. Miner apparently gloried in what he had done.

The children were trembling with fear and could scarcely go on with
their dinners. They dared not cry. Their eyes were fixed upon their
father's face, like the eyes of kittens accustomed to violence. The wife
tried to conceal her shame and indigna