her. He had an idea that it would be
terribly and silently embarrassing down there with no one around but the
two of them.

"I don't want to go," he declared.

"Very well," said Earle, and went off alone, through the lot and into
the corn.

And he got no comfort whatever out of the talk he had with his mother a
little later in the living room, though she smiled at him when he
entered, and put her sewing aside.

Encouraged, he went to her and leaned against her knee; she brushed his
hair back off his forehead, just as she always did.

"What is it, dear?" she asked.

"Papa ain't goin' to whip F'ank, is he, Mama?"

"Why, yes--he has to."

"I tol' F'ank to kill him!"

"But Frank's a grown dog--he knew better."

He grew suddenly angry--angry at her very simplicity.

"F'ank won't kill any more chickens!"

"How do you know?"

"I know!" he cried, and stamped his foot. "I know!"

He came away from this futile interview in a suppressed rage. From the
hall he saw old Aunt Cindy waddling about in the dining room. No use to
appeal to her. She knew too much, anyhow, that old woman. There was in
her nature none of the simple credulity that characterized his parents.
She was worldly wise, like himself.

He avoided her, therefore, his face turned over his shoulder, afraid she
would see and call him. He went out on the front porch, down the steps,
and, gun under his arm, sauntered round the house to the kennel. Old
Frank came to meet him as far as the chain would allow. Frank thought he
was going to be turned loose now--his eyes showed it. There was a log of
wood beside the kennel, and the boy sat down on it. Frank nestled close
to him, tail dragging across the ground.

Suddenly the boy was all attention, and Frank had pricked his ears.
Steve Earle had come from the pasture, gone up the back steps, and into
the room with the boy's mother. Through the open window just above the
kennel he could hear them talking in a confidential sort of way, as
grown folks talk when they think no one is listening.

"Where's the boy?" asked Earle.

"I don't know, Steve--he went out just now."

She was silent a while, then she spoke, with a little laugh that didn't
sound like a laugh:

"Steve--it's pitiful, pitiful!"

"It's drastic, Mother--but it's the best way."

"But, Steve--suppose it doesn't work?"

It was his father who was silent now.

"Then that will be pretty tough, Mother," he said at last.

They talked some more-