and whether he made any money at it.
Morgan leaned back on the hinder legs of his chair, having finished his
supper, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for his goose-quill pick. He
winked at Isom on the footing of one shrewd man to another as he applied
the quill to his big white teeth.

"Well, I pay my way," said he.

There was a great deal back of the simple words; there was an oily
self-satisfaction, and there was a vast amount of portentous reserve.
Isom liked it; he nodded, a smile moving his beard. It did him good to
meet a man who could get behind the sham skin of the world, and take it
by the heels, and turn it a stunning fall.

Next morning, the sun being out again and the roads promising to dry
speedily, Morgan hitched up and prepared to set out on his flaming path
of enlightenment. Before going he made a proposal to Isom to use that
place as headquarters for a week or two, while he covered the country
lying about.

Anything that meant profit to Isom looked good and fitting in his eyes.
The feeding of another mouth would entail little expense, and so the
bargain was struck. Morgan was to have his breakfast and supper each
day, and provender for his horse, at the rate of four dollars a week,
payable in advance.

Morgan ran over his compendiums and horse books, but Isom was firm for
cash; he suggested at least one ready-reckoner on account, but Isom had
no need of that. Isom could guess to a hundredweight the contents of a
stack of hay, and there never was a banker in this world that could
outfigure him on interest. He had no more need for a ready-reckoner than
a centipede has of legs. Morgan, seeing that nothing but money would
talk there, produced the week's charge on the spot, and drove off to his
day's canvassing well satisfied.

Morgan had not been a paying guest in that house two days before the
somber domestic tragedy that it roofed was as plain to him as if he had
it printed and bound, and in his valise along with the compendiums of
his valuable assortment.

He found it pleasant to return to the farm early of an afternoon and sit
in the kitchen door with his pipe, and watch Ollie's face clear of
clouds as he talked. Consolation and cheer were strangers to her heart;
it required no words from her to tell Morgan that.

Her blushing gratitude for small offices of assistance, such as fetching
a pail of water or a basket of garden greens, repaid Morgan all that he
missed in sales by cutting short