tended to wrench it off and use it
as a weapon against him.

Isom had come but a few steps from his plow. He stopped, looking down at
the furrow as if struggling to hold himself within bounds. Still looking
at the earth, he went back to his implement.

"I'll put you where the dogs won't bite you if you ever threaten my life
ag'in!" said he.

"I didn't threaten your life, Isom, I didn't say a word," said Joe.

"A motion's a threat," said Isom.

"But I'll tell you now," said Joe, quietly, lowering his voice and
leaning forward a little, "you'd better think a long time before you
ever start to lay hands on me again, Isom. This is twice. The next
time----"

Joe set his plow in the furrow with a push that sent the swingle-tree
knocking against the horse's heels. The animal started out of the doze
into which it had fallen while the quarrel went on. Joe grinned,
thinking how even Isom's dumb creatures took every advantage of him that
opportunity offered. But he left his warning unfinished as for words.

There was no need to say more, for Isom was cowed. He was quaking down
to the tap-root of his salt-hardened soul, but he tried to put a
different face on it as he took up his plow.

"I don't want to cripple you, and lay you up," he said. "If I was to
begin on you once I don't know where I'd leave off. Git back to your
work, and don't give me any more of your sass!"

"I'll go back to work when you give me your word that I'm to have meat
and eggs, butter and milk, and plenty of it," said Joe.

"I orto tie you up to a tree and lash you!" said Isom, jerking angrily
at his horse. "I don't know what ever made me pity your mother and keep
her out of the poorhouse by takin' in a loafer like you!"

"Well, if you're sick of the bargain go and tell mother. Maybe she is,
too," Joe suggested.

"No, you'll not git out of it now, you'll stick right here and put in
your time, after all the trouble and expense I've been put to teachin'
you what little you know about farmin'," Isom declared.

He took up his plow and jerked his horse around into the row. Joe stood
watching him, with folded arms, plainly with no intention of following.
Isom looked back over his shoulder.

"Git to work!" he yelled.

"You didn't promise me what I asked," said Joe, quietly.

"No, and that ain't all!" returned Isom.

The tall corn swallowed Isom and his horse as the sea swallowed Pharaoh
and his host. When he returned to the end of the field where