The Bondboy Read online

  She was feeling the comfort of his cheerfulness when he left her to go to bed, although she was sore in conscience and spirit, sore in mind and heart.

  “The Lord never gave any woman a son like him,” said she as the sound of Joe’s steps fell quiet overhead, “and I’ve sold him into slavery and bondage, just to save my own unworthy, coward’y, sneakin’ self!”

  * * *

  CHAPTER II

  A DRY-SALT MAN

  Joe was afoot early. His mother came to the place in the fence where the gate once stood to give him a last word of comfort, and to bewail again her selfishness in sending him away to serve as bondboy under the hard hand of Isom Chase. Joe cheered her with hopeful pictures of the future, when the old home should be redeemed and the long-dwelling shadow of their debt to Isom cleared away and paid. From the rise in the road which gave him the last sight of the house Joe looked back and saw her with her head bowed to the topmost rail of the fence, a figure of dejection and woe in the security which she had purchased for herself at such a heavy price.

  Although Joe moved briskly along his way, his feet as light as if they carried him to some destination of certain felicity, there was a cloud upon his heart. This arrangement which his mother had made in an hour of panic had disordered his plans and troubled the bright waters of his dreams. Plans and dreams were all his riches. They were the sole patrimony of value handed down from Peter Newbolt, the Kentucky gentleman, who had married below his state and carried his young mountain wife away to the Missouri woods to escape the censure of family and criticism of friends.

  That was the only legacy, indeed, that Joe was conscious of, but everybody else was aware that old Peter had left him something even more dangerous than dreams. That was nothing less than a bridling, high-minded, hot-blooded pride–a thing laughable, the neighbors said, in one so bitterly and hopelessly poor.

  “The pore folks,” the neighbors called the Newbolts in speaking of them one to another, for in that community of fairly prosperous people there was none so poor as they. The neighbors had magnified their misfortune into a reproach, and the “pore folks” was a term in which they found much to compensate their small souls for the slights which old Peter, in his conscious superiority, unwittingly put upon them.

  To the end of his days Peter never had been wise enough to forget that nature had endowed him, in many ways, above the level of the world to which Fate had chained his feet, and his neighbors never had been kind enough to forget that he was poor.

  Even after Peter was dead Joe suffered for the family pride. He was still spoken of, far and near in that community, as the “pore folks’s boy.” Those who could not rise to his lofty level despised him because he respected the gerund, and also said were where they said was, and there are, where usage made it they is. It was old Peter’s big-headedness and pride, they said. What business had the pore folks’s boy with the speech of a school-teacher or minister in his mouth? His “coming” and his “going,” indeed! Huh, it made ’em sick.

  Joe had lived a lonely, isolated life on account of the family poverty and pride. He was as sensitive as a poet to the boorish brutality, and his poor, unlettered, garrulous mother made it worse for him by her boasting of his parts. She never failed to let it be known that he had read the Bible through, “from back to back,” and the Cottage Encyclopedia, and the Imitation of Christ, the three books in the Newbolt library.

  People had stood by and watched Peter Newbolt at his schemes and dreams for many a year, and all the time they had seen him growing poorer and poorer, and marveled that he never appeared to realize it himself. Just as a great many men spend their lives following the delusion that they can paint or write, and waste their energies and resources on that false and destructive idea, Peter had held the dream that he was singled out to revolutionize industry by his inventions.

  He had invented a self-winding clock which, outside his own shop and in the hands of another, would not wind; a self-binding reaper that, in his neighbor’s field, would not perform its part; and a lamp that was designed to manufacture the gas that it burned from the water in its bowl, but which dismally and ignobly failed. He had contrived and patented a machine for milking cows, which might have done all that was claimed for it if anybody–cows included–could have been induced to give it a trial, and he had fiddled around with perpetual motion until the place was a litter of broken springs and rusty wheels.

  Nothing had come of all this pother but rustic entertainment, although he demonstrated the truth of his calculations by geometry, and applied Greek names to the things which he had done and hoped to do. All this had eaten up his energies, and his fields had gone but half tilled. Perhaps back of all Peter’s futile strivings there had lain the germ of some useful thing which, if properly directed, might have grown into the fortune of his dreams. But he had plodded in small ways, and had died at last, in debt and hopeless, leaving nothing but a name of reproach which lived after him, and even hung upon his son that cool April morning as he went forward to assume the penance that his mother’s act had set for him to bear.

  And the future was clouded to Joe Newbolt now, like a window-pane with frost upon it, where all had been so clear in his calculations but a day before. In his heart he feared the ordeal for Isom Chase was a man of evil repute.

  Long ago Chase’s first wife had died, without issue, cursed to her grave because she had borne him no sons to labor in his fields. Lately he had married another, a woman of twenty, although he was well along the road to sixty-five himself. His second wife was a stranger in that community, the daughter of a farmer named Harrison, who dwelt beyond the county-seat.

  Chase’s homestead was a place pleasant enough for the abode of happiness, in spite of its grim history and sordid reputation. The mark of thrift was about it, orchards bloomed upon its fair slopes, its hedges graced the highways like cool, green walls, not a leaf in excess upon them, not a protruding bramble. How Isom Chase got all the work done was a matter of unceasing wonder, for nothing tumbled to ruin there, nothing went to waste. The secret of it was, perhaps, that when Chase did hire a man he got three times as much work out of him as a laborer ordinarily performed.

  There were stories abroad that Chase was as hard and cruel to his young wife as he had been to his old, but there was no better warrant for them than his general reputation. It was the custom in those days for a woman to suffer greater indignities and cruelties than now without public complaint. There never had been a separation of man and wife in that community, there never had been a suit for divorce. Doubtless there were as many unhappy women to the square mile there as in other places, but custom ruled that they must conceal their sorrows in their breasts.

  To all of these things concerning Isom Chase, Joe Newbolt was no stranger. He knew, very well indeed, the life that lay ahead of him as the bondboy of that old man as he went forward along the dew-moist road that morning.

  Early as it was, Isom Chase had been out of bed two hours or more when Joe arrived. The scents of frying food came out of the kitchen, and Isom himself was making a splash in a basin of water–one thing that he could afford to be liberal with three times a day–on the porch near the open door.

  Joe had walked three miles, the consuming fires of his growing body were demanding food. The odors of breakfast struck him with keen relish as he waited at the steps of the porch, unseen by Isom Chase, who had lifted his face from the basin with much snorting, and was now drying it on a coarse brown towel.

  “Oh, you’re here,” said he, seeing Joe as he turned to hang up the towel. “Well, come on in and eat your breakfast. We ought to ’a’ been in the field nearly an hour ago.”

  Hungry as he was, Joe did not advance to accept the invitation, which was not warmed by hospitality, indeed, but sounded rather like a command. He stood where he had stopped, and pushed his flap-brimmed hat back from his forehead, in nervous movement of decision. Chase turned, half-way to the door, looking back at his bound boy with impatience.


  “No need for you to be bashful. This is home for a good while to come,” said he.

  “I’m not so very bashful,” Joe disclaimed, placing the little roll which contained his one extra shirt on the wash-bench near the door, taking off his hat, then, and standing serious and solemn before his new master.

  “Well, I don’t want to stand here waitin’ on you and dribble away the day, for I’ve got work to do!” said Isom sourly.

  “Yes, sir,” said Joe, yielding the point respectfully, but standing his ground; “but before I go across your doorstep, and sit at your table and break bread with you, I want you to understand my position in this matter.”

  “It’s all settled between your mother and me,” said Chase impatiently, drawing down his bayoneted eyebrows in a frown, “there’s no understanding to come to between me and you–you’ve got nothing to say in the transaction. You’re bound out to me for two years and three months at ten dollars a month and all found, and that settles it.”

  “No, it don’t settle it,” said Joe with rising heat; “it only begins it. Before I put a bite in my mouth in this house, or set my hand to any work on this place, I’m going to lay down the law to you, Mr. Chase, and you’re going to listen to it, too!”

  “Now, Joe, you’ve got too much sense to try to stir up a row and rouse hard feelin’s between us at the start,” said Isom, coming forward with his soft-soap of flattery and crafty conciliation.

  “If I hadn’t ’a’ known that you was the smartest boy of your age anywhere around here, do you suppose I’d have taken you in this way?”

  “You scared mother into it; you didn’t give me a chance to say anything, and you took an underhanded hold,” charged Joe, his voice trembling with scarce-controlled anger. “It wasn’t right, Isom, it wasn’t fair. You know I could hire out any day for more than ten dollars a month, and you know I’d never let mother go on the county as long as I was able to lift a hand.”

  “Winter and summer through, Joe–you must consider that,” argued Isom, giving his head a twist which was meant to be illustrative of deep wisdom.

  “You knew she was afraid of being thrown on the county,” said Joe, “you sneaked in when I wasn’t around and scared her up so she’d do most anything.”

  “Well, you don’t need to talk so loud,” cautioned Isom, turning an uneasy, cross look toward the door, from which the sound of a light step fled.

  “I’ll talk loud enough for you to hear me, and understand what I mean,” said Joe. “I could run off and leave you, Isom, if I wanted to, but that’s not my way. Mother made the bargain, I intend to live up to it, and let her have what little benefit there is to be got out of it. But I want you to know what I think of you at the start, and the way I feel about it. I’m here to work for mother, and keep that old roof over her head that’s dearer to her than life, but I’m not your slave nor your servant in any sense of the word.”

  “It’s all the same to me,” said Isom, dropping his sham front of placation, lifting his finger to accent his words, “but you’ll work, understand that–you’ll work!”

  “Mother told me,” said Joe not in the least disturbed by this glimpse of Isom in his true guise, “that you had that notion in your mind, Isom. She said you told her you could thrash me if you wanted to do it, but I want to tell you––”

  “It’s the law,” cut in Isom. “I can do it if I see fit.”

  “Well, don’t ever try it,” said Joe, drawing a long breath. “That was the main thing I wanted to say to you, Isom–don’t ever try that!”

  “I never intended to take a swingle-tree to you, Joe,” said Isom, forcing his dry face into a grin. “I don’t see that there ever need be any big differences between me and you. You do what’s right by me and I’ll do the same by you.”

  Isom spoke with lowered voice, a turning of the eyes toward the kitchen door, as if troubled lest this defiance of his authority might have been heard within, and the seeds of insubordination sown in another bond-slave’s breast.

  “I’ll carry out mother’s agreement with you to the best of my ability,” said Joe, moving forward as if ready now to begin.

  “Then come on in and eat your breakfast,” said Isom.

  Isom led the way into the smoky kitchen, inwardly more gratified than displeased over this display of spirit. According to the agreement between them, he had taken under bond-service the Widow Newbolt’s “minor male child,” but it looked to him as if some mistake had been made in the delivery.

  “He’s a man!” exulted Isom in his heart, pleased beyond measure that he had bargained better than he had known.

  Joe put his lean brown hand into the bosom of his shirt and brought out a queer, fat little book, leather-bound and worn of the corners. This he placed on top of his bundle, then followed Chase into the kitchen where the table was spread for breakfast.

  Mrs. Chase was busy straining milk. She did not turn her head, nor give the slightest indication of friendliness or interest in Joe as he took the place pointed out by Chase. Chase said no word of introduction. He turned his plate over with a businesslike flip, took up the platter which contained two fried eggs and a few pieces of bacon, scraped off his portion, and handed the rest to Joe.

  In addition to the one egg each, and the fragments of bacon, there were sodden biscuits and a broken-nosed pitcher holding molasses. A cup of roiled coffee stood ready poured beside each plate, and that was the breakfast upon which Joe cast his curious eyes. It seemed absurdly inadequate to the needs of two strong men, accustomed as Joe was to four eggs at a meal, with the stays of life which went with them in proportion.

  Mrs. Chase did not sit at the table with them, nor replenish the empty platter, although Joe looked expectantly and hungrily for her to do so. She was carrying pans of milk into the cellar, and did not turn her head once in their direction during the meal.

  Joe rose from the table hungry, and in that uneasy state of body began his first day’s labor on Isom Chase’s farm. He hoped that dinner might repair the shortcomings of breakfast, and went to the table eagerly when that hour came.

  For dinner there was hog-jowl and beans, bitter with salt, yellow with salt, but apparently greatly to the liking of Isom, whose natural food seemed to be the very essence of salt.

  “Help yourself, eat plenty,” he invited Joe.

  Jowls and beans were cheap; he could afford to be liberal with that meal. Generosity in regard to that five-year-old jowl cost him scarcely a pang.

  “Thank you,” said Joe politely. “I’m doing very well.”

  A place was laid for Mrs. Chase, as at breakfast, but she did not join them at the table. She was scalding milk crocks and pans, her face was red from the steam. As she bent over the sink the uprising vapor moved her hair upon her temples like a wind.

  “Ain’t you goin’ to eat your dinner, Ollie?” inquired Isom with considerable lightness, perhaps inspired by the hope that she was not.

  “I don’t feel hungry right now,” she answered, bending over her steaming pan of crocks.

  Isom did not press her on the matter. He filled up his plate again with beans and jowl, whacking the grinning jawbone with his knife to free the clinging shreds of meat.

  Accustomed as he had been all his life to salt fare, that meal was beyond anything in that particular of seasoning that Joe ever had tasted. The fiery demand of his stomach for liquid dilution of his saline repast made an early drain on his coffee; when he had swallowed the last bean that he was able to force down, his cup was empty. He cast his eyes about inquiringly for more.

  “We only drink one cup of coffee at a meal here,” explained Isom, a rebuke in his words for the extravagance of those whose loose habits carried them beyond that abstemious limit.

  “All right; I guess I can make out on that,” said Joe.

  There was a pitcher of water at his hand, upon which he drew heavily, with the entire good-will and approbation of Isom. Then he took his hat from the floor at his feet and went out, leaving Isom hammerin
g again at the jowl, this time with the handle of his fork, in the hope of dislodging a bit of gristle which clung to one end.

  Joe’s hope leaped ahead to supper, unjustified as the flight was by the day’s developments. Human creatures could not subsist longer than a meal or two on such fare as that, he argued; there must be a change very soon, of course.

  It was a heavy afternoon for Joe. He was weary from the absolute lack of nourishment when the last of the chores was done long after dusk, and Isom announced that they would go to the house for supper.

  The supper began with soup, made from the left-over beans and the hog’s jaw of dinner. There it swam, that fleshless, long-toothed, salt-reddened bone, the most hateful piece of animal anatomy that Joe ever fixed his hungry eyes upon. And supper ended as it began; with soup. There was nothing else behind it, save some hard bread to soak in it, and its only savor was salt.

  Isom seemed to be satisfied with, even cheered by, his liquid refreshment. His wife came to her place at the table when they were almost through, and sat stirring a bowl of the mixture of bread and thin soup, her eyes set in abstracted stare in the middle of the table, far beyond the work of her hands. She did not speak to Joe; he did not undertake any friendly approaches.

  Joe never had seen Mrs. Chase before that day, neighbors though they had been for months. She appeared unusually handsome to Joe, with her fair skin, and hair colored like ripe oats straw. She wore a plait of it as big as his wrist coiled and wound around her head.

  For a little while after finishing his unsatisfying meal, Joe sat watching her small hand turning the spoon in her soup. He noted the thinness of her young cheeks, in which there was no marvel, seeing the fare upon which she was forced to live. She seemed to be unconscious of him and Isom. She did not raise her eyes.

  Joe got up in a little while and left them, going to the porch to look for his bundle and his book. They were gone. He came back, standing hesitatingly in the door.