ncurled across a crack in the rough, worn
kitchen floor.

"Git everything else done, too," went on Big Tom. "You don't scrub till
to-morrow, so the day's clear for stringin' beads, or makin' vi'lets.
And don't let me come home t'night and find no hot supper. _You_ hear
me." He chewed once or twice--on nothing.

Johnnie continued silent, counting the laths--from the top down, from
the bottom up. But his toe moved a shade faster. For there was a note of
rising irritation in that _You_ hear me.

"I say, you _hear_ me!" repeated Big Tom (replies always angered him:
this time silence had). He thrust the whole of the short stem of his
"nose-warmer" into his mouth. Then, with the free hand, he seized
Johnnie by one thin shoulder and gave him a rough, forward jerk.

"Yes," acknowledged the boy, realizing too late that this was one
occasion when speech would have been safest. He still concentrated on
the laths, hoping that matters would go no further.

But that single jerk, far from satisfying Barber's rancor, only added to
it--precisely as if he had tasted something which had whetted his
appetite for more. He gripped Johnnie's shoulder again, this time
driving him back a step. "Now, no sass!" he warned.

The blood came rushing to Johnnie's face, darkening it so that the misty
yellow-white brows stood out grotesquely. And his chest began to heave.
He loathed the touch of Barber's hand. He despised the daily orders that
only turned him against his work. But most of all he shrank from the
indignity of being jerked when it was wholly undeserved.

Big Tom marked the boy's rising color. And the sight spurred his
ill-humor. "What do you do for your keep?" he demanded. "_Stop_ pullin'
your hair!" He struck Johnnie's hand down with a sweaty palm that
touched the boy's forehead. "Pullin' and hawlin' _all_ the time, but
don't earn the grub y' swallow!"

Just as one jerk always led to another, so one blow was usually the
prelude to a thrashing. Johnnie saw that he must stop the thing right
there; must have instant help in diverting Barber. Taking a quick, deep
breath, he sounded his call for aid--a loud, croupy cough.

It was instantly answered. The door beside the cookstove swung wide, and
Cis came hurrying in from the tiny, windowless closet--this her "own
room"--where she had been listening anxiously. "Oh, Mr. Barber," she
began, trying to keep her young voice from trembling, "this week can I
have enough out of my wages for so