's foot was heavy on the floor over her head, moving about as if in
search of something to use in the flagellation. Ollie stood with hands
to her tumultuous bosom, pity welling in her heart for the lad who was
to feel the vigor of Isom's unsparing arm.

There was a lighter step upon the floor, moving across the room like a
sudden wind. The bound boy's voice sounded again, clear now and steady,
near the top of the stairs where Isom stood.

"Put that down! Put that down, I tell you!" he commanded. "I warned you
never to lift your hand against me. If you hit me with that I'll kill
you in your tracks!"

Ollie's heart leaped at the words; hot blood came into her face with a
surge. She clasped her hands to her breast in new fervor, and lifted her
face as one speeding a thankful prayer. She had heard Isom Chase
threatened and defied in his own house, and the knowledge that one lived
with the courage to do what she had longed to do, lifted her heart and
made it glad.

She heard Isom growl something in his throat, muffled and low, which she
could not separate into words.

"Well, then, I'll let it pass--this time," said Joe. "But don't you ever
do it any more. I'm a heavy sleeper sometimes, and this is an hour or
two earlier than I am used to getting up; but if you'll call me loud
enough, and talk like you were calling a man and not a dog, you'll have
no trouble with me. Now get out of here!"

Ollie could have shouted in the triumph of that moment. She shared the
bound boy's victory and exulted in his high independence. Isom had
swallowed it like a coward; now he was coming down the stairs, snarling
in his beard, but his knotted fist had not enforced discipline; his
coarse, distorted foot had not been lifted against his new slave. She
felt that the dawn was breaking over that house, that one had come into
it who would ease her of its terrors.

Joe came along after Isom in a little while, slipping his suspenders
over his lank shoulders as he went out of the kitchen door. He did not
turn to Ollie with the morning's greetings, but held his face from her
and hurried on, she thought, as if ashamed.

Ollie ran to the door on her nimble toes, the dawn of a smile on her
face, now rosy with its new light, and looked after him as he hurried
away in the brightening day. She stood with her hands clasped in
attitude of pleasure, again lifting her face as if to speed a prayer.

"Oh, thank God for a _man_!" said she.

Isom was in a