n gaining in prosperity. The third year treated him better
than the second, and the fourth better than the third. During the fifth
he enlarged his farm and his house and took pride in the fact that his
oldest boy, Matthew, was away at school. By the tenth year of his
freedom he was arrogantly out of debt. Then his pride was too much for
him. During all these years of his struggle the words of his master had
been as gall in his mouth. Now he spat them out with a boast. He talked
much in the market-place, and where many people gathered, he was much
there, giving himself as a bright and shining example.

"Huh," he would chuckle to any listeners he could find, "Ol' Mas'
Brabant, he say, 'Stay hyeah, stay hyeah, you do' know how to tek keer
o' yo'se'f yit.' But I des' look at my two han's an' I say to myse'f,
whut I been doin' wid dese all dese yeahs--tekin' keer o' myse'f an'
him, too. I wo'k in de fiel', he set in de big house an' smoke. I wo'k
in de fiel', his son go away to college an' come back a graduate. Das
hit. Well, w'en freedom come, I des' bent an' boun' I ain' gwine do it
no mo' an' I didn't. Now look at me. I sets down w'en I wants to. I
does my own wo'kin' an' my own smokin'. I don't owe a cent, an' dis yeah
my boy gwine graduate f'om de school. Dat's me, an' I ain' called on ol'
Mas' yit."

Now, an example is always an odious thing, because, first of all, it is
always insolent even when it is bad, and there were those who listened
to Jerry who had not been so successful as he, some even who had stayed
on the plantation and as yet did not even own the mule they ploughed
with. The hearts of those were filled with rage and their mouths with
envy. Some of the sting of the latter got into their retelling of
Jerry's talk and made it worse than it was.

Old Samuel Brabant laughed and said, "Well, Jerry's not dead yet, and
although I don't wish him any harm, my prophecy might come true yet."

There were others who, hearing, did not laugh, or if they did, it was
with a mere strained thinning of the lips that had no element of mirth
in it. Temper and tolerance were short ten years after sixty-three.

The foolish farmer's boastings bore fruit, and one night when he and his
family had gone to church he returned to find his house and barn in
ashes, his mules burned and his crop ruined. It had been very quietly
done and quickly. The glare against the sky had attracted few from the
nearby town, and them too late to be o