s was inherent in
him was evoked by his religious jealousies, and the pious sense that
he was following the traditions of his elders and upholding the family
honor blended in gentlest satisfaction with his personal animosity
toward Roger Purdee as he noticed the boy edging off from the fence to a
safe distance. He eyed him derisively for a moment.

"Kin ye kerry a message straight?" The boy looked up with an expression
of sullen acquiescence, but said nothing. "Ax yer dad--an'ye kin tell
him the word kems from me--whether he hev read sech ez this on the
lawgiver's stone tables yander in the mounting: 'An' ye shall claim
sech ez be yourn, an' yer neighbor's belongings shall ye in no wise
boastfully medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covet-iousness, nor
yit git up a big name in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's.'"

He laughed silently--a twinkling, wrinkling demonstration over all
his broad face--a laugh that was younger than the man, and would have
befitted a square-faced boy.

The youthful Purdee, expectant of a cuffing, stood his ground more
doubtfully still under the insidious thrusts of this strange weapon,
sarcasm. He knew that they were intended to hurt; he was wounded
primarily in the intention, but the exact lesion he could not locate. He
could meet a threat with a bold face, and return a blow with the best.
But he was mortified in this failure of understanding, and perplexity
cowed him as contention could not. He hung his head with its sullen
questioning eyes, and he found great solace in a jagged bit of cloth
on the torn bosom of his shirt, which he could turn in his embarrassed
fingers.

"Whar be yer dad?" Grinnell asked.

"Up yander in the mounting," replied the subdued Purdee.

"A-readin' of mighty s'prisin' matter writ on the rocks o' the yearth!"
exclaimed Grinnell, with a laugh. "Waal, jes keep that sayin' o' mine in
yer head, an' tell him when he kems home. An' look a-hyar, ef enny mo'
o' his stray shoats kem about hyar, I'll snip thar ears an' gin 'em my
mark."

The youth of the Purdee clan meditated on this for a moment. He could
not remember that they had missed any shoats. Then the full meaning of
the phrase dawned upon him--it was he and the wiry little sister thus
demeaned with a porcine appellation, and whose ears were threatened.
He looked up at the fence, the little low house, the barn close by,
the sorghum mill, the drying leaves of tobacco on the scaffold, the
saltatory