Altogether, if some miracle could have given him a father who would occasionally see eye-to-eye with him on things agricultural and personal, Billy would almost have played hookey from school for a life like this.

The forenoon seemed to be going uneventfully enough. Dan’s rather threatening admonition when they began the planting had been to “look sharp now” and not keep the horses standing, and Billy had determined to keep ahead of them at the sacrifice of any minor details. He had been shown just how far apart to drop the pieces, but when you see the furrow reaching up behind you like an unfriendly snake, and no escape before the end of the row; when the handle of the pail is cutting into the flesh of your arm and the bags of seed are rods down the field, there is a powerful temptation to make what you have go as far as possible. Suddenly the horses stopped and Dan came around to examine the planting.

“Hev you dropped ’em all as far apart as this?” he asked. “I might ’a’ knowed I couldn’t trust you. Never saw the time yet that you wasn’t

a durn sight more bother than help. Well, you c’n just stake off these rows, an’ when we’re through plantin’ you c’n dig ’em up with the hoe, an’ plant ’em right. Mebby that’ll learn you a little more than goin’ to school fer a while.”

Just when the neighbors’ dinner bells began to call the men from the farther fields, Dan again called across the headland: “You’d better go to the barn an’ get some more seed. Save the prize Carmens here fer the last rows an’ mind to shut the gate after you or the sow’ll be in.”

Billy hitched old Nell to the stone-boat, shut the gate after him and went for the seed. When he came back the gate was still closed, but Tibby and her family were demolishing the last of the prize Carmens. When she found she had to leave, she made straight for the vulnerable spot in the stump fence that had given her entrance. Billy drove the pigs ahead of him and went after some rails. On the way he heard his mother ring the dinner-bell, saw, from many a furtive glance back, his father stop at the littered remains of the prize Carmens, look all around and start on to the barn. The most Billy could hope for was that his wrath might have cooled a little before he would have to meet him. By the time he had blocked the hole in the fence and brought Nell up to the stable his father had gone to the house, so he climbed up and put down the hay, dampened old Nell’s oats as usual, so she wouldn’t

choke on them, and with his little heart palpitating till he could hardly swallow, approached the house.

The savory steam of stewed chicken came out from the kitchen. When the meat supply ran low in the spring his mother killed off the old hens. She always made hot biscuits to break into the gravy and had the grandest pot pies ever to tide a fellow over a time like this. If they had it for dinner when he was at school she saved a drumstick and the gizzard for him. He was almost forgetting his soul’s anxiety in the urgent pressure of his animal wants.

Mary knew something of what had happened. In fact Dan had informed her without softening the details. Still, in spite of the morning’s “aggrevations,” he was eating his dinner with satisfactory relish when Billy came in. She met Billy at the door to ask cheerfully:

“How’d you get along?”

“Fine,” Billy answered with a disconcerting unsteadiness under the attempt.

“Well, just get washed now, and have your dinner while it’s hot. I have some nice pot pie here.”

But this was a little too much for Dan. To be ignored so brazenly in the face of the storm he had been brewing with inward satisfaction, to be treated as though he were no more than a figurehead in his own house! He had often declared

that there was a secret understanding, a conspiracy against him in his own family, and it was time to show where he stood now.

“You hain’t got no pot-pie fer him,” he interrupted. “He’ll git his belly full o’ something else ’sides pie when I’m through here.”

All at once Billy’s fortitude gave way. Perhaps because he was tired and hungry, his flesh quailed before the coming ordeal. “I didn’t leave the gate open,” he cried, wild terror in his eyes. “The pigs got in through the fence. I found the place.”

“You consarned little liar! You fool away the whole morning, spoil the whole patch with yer lazy tricks, thinkin’ I wouldn’t see ’em, then let the stock in to eat up the seed I’ve paid fer. I’ll just waken you up so’s I’ll warrant you’ll think twice before you try the like again.”

The rawhide was coming down from its hook; it had been kept in the house ever since Billy could remember.

“Now, Dan,” Mary pleaded with her hand on his arm—a gentleness of touch that always irritated him into a frenzy, “you aren’t fit to punish him now ... and he did his best.”

“You dictatin’ too, hey!” he stormed, pushing her off. “No wonder the young un’s no good with your eternal coddlin’ an’ interferin’. Stand out the way there.”

But the mother-tigress instinct was roused in

its helpless way. Still she clung to his arm. Only Billy seemed to have come to any self-control.

“Don’t, mummy,” he ordered calmly; “I c’n stand it.”

The nerve, the audacity of the proud little figure angered Dan more because it shamed him. If the boy had been a foot taller his father would have been cowed by the quiet reproach in the steady brown eyes, but Billy was only such a little handful of bones—something like a bird when you cover it with your hand and find it all feathers and skeleton and crushable, so he suffered the full punishment—the sickening, lithe, cutting, kind of blows that we have shivered to hear dealt to colts out in the far recesses of the green country, away from the danger of official interference. He emerged ridged, welted, white and tearless, with an ugly red streak across one cheek that somehow Dan wished wasn’t there. It made the rest of his face look so white and pinched and old for its years.

Potato planting had been suspended for the day. Without excuse or errand Dan had driven off to town. Straggling buggies began driving down the road—people, neighbors most of them, all dressed up like they went to church on Sundays, the sun shining pleasantly on the horses’ sleek backs and glittering over the bright parts of the harness. Billy climbed up to the vantage point of the gate post, and looked up the road

eagerly, as many another boy has watched for a circus parade. Yes, it was coming just over the hill—he could see the bright black top of it—the hearse. He remembered that this was the day of Mrs. Brown’s funeral, and he had heard his mother say she ought to go; maybe he could go with her.

He had been at old Mr. Hopkin’s funeral when he was quite small and had enjoyed it immensely. It had seemed just like a story to watch the people all moving around so still as if they expected something; to see the black box with its silver handles and the flowers all piled on top—he had wanted his mother to lift him up to see in, but she didn’t. Mr. Hopkins’ family were all there, fine, rich-looking men and women with their hair beginning to turn grey and children of their own almost grown up. And the people had sung “The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want.” It was just fine. You could almost see old Mr. Hopkins going down the green pastures with his long staff, just like he came out to salt the sheep, only not so bent over, and maybe with a long gown on like the charts showed at Sunday school. He would likely have found Mrs. Hopkins, who had died two years before, and they would sit under the trees and both be happier than they had been in all their lives. One of the daughters had said, “He never was the same since Ma died,” and Billy’s faith never