Up the road to the eastward that ran past the school, with the morning sun at his back, strode a young man, yellow, crisp-haired, strong-faced, with darkly knit brows. He greeted Bles and the teacher coldly, and moved on in nervous haste. A woman, hurrying out of the westward swamp up the path that led from Elspeth's, saw him and shrank back hastily. She turned quickly into the swamp and waited, looking toward the school. The old woman hurried into the back gate just as the old man appeared to the southward on the road. The young man greeted him cordially and they stopped a moment to talk, while the hiding woman watched.
"Howdy, Uncle Jim."
"Howdy, son. Hit's hot, ain't it? How is you?"
"Tolerable, how are you?"
"Poorly, son, poorly--and worser in mind. I'se goin' up to talk to old Miss."
"So am I, but I just see Aunt Rachel going in. We'd better wait."
Miss Smith started up at the timid knocking, and rubbed her eyes. It was long since she had slept in the daytime and she was annoyed at such laziness. She opened the back door and led the old woman to the office.
"Now, what have you got there?" she demanded, eyeing the basket.
"Just a little chicken fo' you and a few aigs."
"Oh, you are so thoughtful!" Sarah Smith's was a grateful heart.
"Go 'long now--hit ain't a thing."
Then came a pause, the old woman sliding into the proffered seat, while over her genial, dimpled smile there dropped a dull veil of care. Her eyes shifted uneasily. Miss Smith tried not to notice the change.
"Well, are you all moved, Aunt Rachel?" she inquired cheerfully.
"No'm, and we ain't gwine to move."
"But I thought it was all arranged."
"It was," gloomily, "but de ole Cunnel, he won't let us go."
The listener was instantly sympathetic. "Why not?" she asked.
"He says we owes him."
"But didn't you settle at Christmas?"
"Yas'm; but when he found we was goin' away, he looked up some more debts."
"How much?"
"I don't know 'zactly--more'n a hundred dollars. Den de boys done got in dat trouble, and he paid their fines."
"What was the trouble?"
"Well, one was a-gambling, and the other struck the overseer what was a-whippin' him."
"Whipping him!"--in horrified exclamation, quite as much at Aunt Rachel's matter-of-fact way of regarding the matter as at the deed itself.
"Yas'm. He didn't do his work right and he whipped him. I speck he needed it."
"But he's a grown man," Miss Smith urged earnestly.
"Yas'm; he's twenty now, and big."
"Whipped him!" Miss Smith repeated. "And so you can't leave?"