, but far from
satisfying to a lad in the process of building on such generous plans as
Joe. Isom knew that too much skim-milk would make a pot-bellied calf,
but he was too stubborn in his rule of life to admit the cause when he
saw that Joe began to lag at his work, and grow surly and sour.

Isom came in for quick and startling enlightenment in the middle of a
lurid July morning, while he and Joe were at work with one-horse
cultivators, "laying by" the corn. Joe threw his plow down in the
furrow, cast the lines from his shoulders, and declared that he was
starving. He vowed that he would not cultivate another row unless
assured, then and there, that Isom would make an immediate enlargement
in the bill-of-fare.

Isom stood beside the handles of his own cultivator, there being the
space of ten rows between him and Joe, and took the lines from around
his shoulders, with the deliberate, stern movement of a man who is
preparing for a fight.

"What do you mean by this kind of capers?" he demanded.

"I mean that you can't go on starving me like you've been doing, and
that's all there is to it!" said Joe. "The law don't give you the right
to do that."

"Law! Well, I'll law you," said Isom, coming forward, his hard body
crouched a little, his lean and guttered neck stretched as if he
gathered himself for a run and jump at the fence. "I'll feed you what
comes to my hand to feed you, you onery whelp! You're workin' for me,
you belong to me!"

"I'm working for mother--I told you that before," said Joe. "I don't owe
you anything, Isom, and you've got to feed me better, or I'll walk away
and leave you, that's what I'll do!"

"Yes, I see you walkin' away!" said Isom, plucking at his already
turned-up sleeve. "I'm goin' to give you a tannin' right now, and one
you'll not forget to your dyin' day!"

At that moment Isom doubtless intended to carry out his threat. Here was
a piece of his own property, as much his property as his own wedded
wife, defying him, facing him with extravagant demands, threatening to
stop work unless more bountifully fed! Truly, it was a state of
insurrection such as no upright citizen like Isom Chase could allow to
go by unreproved and unquieted by castigation of his hand.

"You'd better stop where you are," advised Joe.

He reached down and righted his plow. Isom could see the straining of
the leaders in his lean wrist as he stood gripping the handle, and the
thought passed through him that Joe in