t to serve his country
once in a while on a jury, thought Isom, especially when that patriot
had been shrewd in his dealings with the widow and orphan, and had thus
secured himself against loss at home while his country called him
abroad. Jury duty was nothing but a pleasant season of relaxation in
such case.

There would be mileage and _per diem_, and the state would bear the
expense of lodging and meals in the event of his being drawn out of the
panel to serve in some long criminal case. Mileage and _per diem_ would
come in very nicely, in addition to the four dollars a week that
loose-handed book agent was paying. For the first time in his life when
called upon for jury service, Isom went to meet it with no sourness in
his face. Mileage and _per diem_, but best of all, a great strong man
left at home in his place; one to be trusted in and depended upon; one
who would do both his master's work and his own.

Joe had no such pleasant cogitations to occupy his mind as he bent his
long back to assume the double burden when Isom went away. For many days
he had been unquiet with a strange, indefinable unrest, like the yearn
of a wild-fowl when the season comes for it to wing away to southern
seas. Curtis Morgan was behind that strong, wild feeling; he was the
urge of it, and the fuel of its fire.

Why it was so, Joe did not know, although he struggled in his reason to
make it clear. For many days, almost from the first, Joe had felt that
Morgan should not be in that house; that his pretext of lingering there
on business was a blind too thin to deceive anybody but Isom. Anybody
could deceive Isom if he would work his scheme behind a dollar. It was a
shield beyond which Isom could not see, and had no wish to inquire.

Joe did not like those late starts which Morgan made of a morning, long
after he and Isom were in the field, nor the early homings, long before
they came in to do the chores. Joe left the house each morning with
reluctance, after Isom's departure, lingering over little things,
finding hitherto undiscovered tasks to keep him about in the presence of
Ollie, and to throw him between her and the talkative boarder, who
seemed always hanging at her heels. Since their talk at dinner on the
day that Morgan came, Joe had felt a new and deep interest in Ollie, and
held for her an unaccountable feeling of friendliness.

This feeling had been fed, for a few days, by Ollie, who found odd
minutes to talk with him as she