to be kind o'
careful."

After a moment's pause he went on:

"A man threatened to lick me up to Seaver's t'other day. You couldn't
blame him. He didn't know me from a side o' sole leather. He just
thought I was one o' them common, every-day cusses that folks use to
limber up on. But he see his mistake in time. I tell ye God was good to
him when he kept him away from me."

Aunt Deel called us to supper.

"Le's go in an' squench our hunger," Mr. Purvis proposed as he rose and
shut his jackknife.

I was very much impressed and called him "Mr. Purvis" after that. I
enjoyed and believed many tales of adventure in which he had been the
hero as we worked together in the field or stable. I told them to my
aunt and uncle one evening, whereupon the latter said:

"He's a good man to work, but Jerusalem--!"

He stopped. He always stopped at the brink of every such precipice. I
had never heard him finish an uncomplimentary sentence.

I began to have doubts regarding the greatness of our hired man. I still
called him "Mr. Purvis," but all my fear of him had vanished.

One day Mr. Grimshaw came out in the field to see my uncle. They walked
away to the shade of a tree while "Mr. Purvis" and I went on with the
hoeing. I could hear the harsh voice of the money-lender speaking in
loud and angry tones and presently he went away.

"What's the rip?" I asked as my uncle returned looking very sober.

"We won't talk about it now," he answered.

That look and the fears it inspired ruined my day which had begun with
eager plans for doing and learning. In the candle-light of the evening
Uncle Peabody said:

"Grimshaw has demanded his mortgage money an' he wants it in gold coin.
We'll have to git it some way, I dunno how."

"W'y of all things!" my aunt exclaimed. "How are we goin' to git all
that money--these hard times?--ayes! I'd like to know?"

"Well, I can't tell ye," said Uncle Peabody. "I guess he can't forgive
us for savin' Rodney Barnes."

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Why, he says we hadn't no business to hire a man to help us. He says
you an' me ought to do all the work here. He thinks I ought to took you
out o' school long ago."

"I can stay out o' school and keep on with my lessons," I said.

"Not an' please him. He was mad when he see ye with a book in yer hand
out there in the corn-field."

What were we to do now? I spent the first sad night of my life undoing
the plans which had been so dear to me but not so