or three or
four years yet," said Chase, studying her averted face as if to take
possession of even her thoughts. "He'll not be able to do much toward
supportin' you, even if he could light on to a steady, all-the-year job,
which he can't, the way times is."

"No, I don't reckon he could," said she.

"And if I was to let you two stay on here I wouldn't be any nearer bein'
paid back that four hundred dollar loan in two or three years than I am
now. It's nearly five hundred now, with the interest pilin' up, and
it'll be a thousand before you know it. It'd take that boy a lifetime to
pay it off."

"Peter failed," she nodded; "it was a burden on him that hackled him to
the grave. Yes, I reckon you're right. But there's no tellin' how Joe
he'll turn out, Mr. Chase. He may turn out to be a better manager than
his pap was."

"How old is he?" asked Chase.

"Most nineteen," said she, some kind of a faraway hope, indefinable and
hazy, lifting the cloud of depression which had fallen over her, "and
he's uncommon big and stout for his age. Maybe if you'd give Joe work he
could pay it off, interest and all, by the time he's twenty-one."

"Not much need for him," said Chase, shaking his head, "but I
might--well, I might figure around so I could take him over, on certain
conditions, you understand? It all depends on your plans. If you haven't
anywhere to go when you leave this house, you're bound to land on the
county."

"Don't tell me that, Mr. Chase--don't tell me that!" she begged,
pressing her battered hands to her eyes, rocking and moaning in her
chair.

"What's the use of puttin' the truth back of you when you're bound to
come face up to it in the end?" he asked. "I was talkin' to Judge
Little, of the county court, about you this morning. I told him I'd have
to foreclose and take possession of this forty to save myself.

"'It'll throw her and that boy on the county,' he says. 'Yes, I reckon
it will,' I told him, 'but no man can say I've been hard on 'em.'"

"Oh, you wouldn't throw me on the county at the end of my days, Mr.
Chase!" she appealed. "Joe he'll take care of me, if you'll only give
him a chance--if you'll only give him a chance, Mr. Chase!"

"I meant to take that up with you," said he, "on the conditions I spoke
of a minute ago."

He turned to her, as if for her consent to give expression to his
mysterious terms. She nodded, and he went on:

"In the winter time, ma'am, to tell you the plain truth, Joe