The Bondboy. George W. Ogden

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      “Did you hear what he said to me this morning when he was standin’ there by the steps?”

      “No, I didn’t hear,” listlessly, indifferently.

      “H’m–I thought you was listening.”

      “I just looked out to see who it was.”

      “No difference if you did hear, Ollie,” he allowed generously–for Isom. “A man’s wife ought to share his business secrets, according to my way of lookin’ at it; she’s got a right to know what’s going on. Well, I tell you that chap talked up to me like a man!”

      Isom smacked his lips over the recollection. The promise of it was sweet to his taste.

      Ollie’s heart stirred a little. She wondered if someone had entered that house at last who would be able to set at defiance its stern decrees. She hoped that, if so, this breach in the grim wall might let some sunlight in time into her own 34 bleak heart. But she said nothing to Isom, and he talked on.

      “I made a good pick when I lit on that boy,” said he, with that old wise twist of the head; “the best pick in this county, by a long shot. I choose a man like I pick a horse, for the blood he shows. A blooded horse will endure where a plug will fall down, and it’s the same way with a man. Ollie, don’t you know that boy’s got as good a strain in him as you’ll find in this part of the country?”

      “I never saw him before today, I don’t know his folks,” said she, apparently little interested in her husband’s find.

      Isom sat silent for a while, looking at the worn floor.

      “Well, he’s bound out to me for two years and more,” said he, the comfort of it in his hard, plain face. “I’ll have a steady hand that I can depend on now. That’s a boy that’ll do his duty; no doubt in my mind about that. It may go against the grain once in a while, Ollie, like our duty does for all of us sometimes; but, no matter how it tastes to him, that boy Joe, he’ll face it.

      “He’s not one of the kind that’ll shirk on me when my back’s turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He’s as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he’s as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He’s got Kentucky blood in him, and the best of it, too.”

      “He brought a funny little Bible with him,” said Ollie in low voice, as if communing with herself.

      “Funny?” said Isom. “Is that so?”

      “So little and fat,” she explained. “I never saw one like it before. It was there on the bench this morning with his bundle. I put it up by his bed.”

      “Hum-m,” said Isom reflectively, as if considering it deeply. Then: “Well, I guess it’s all right.”

      Isom sat a good while, fingering his stiff beard. He gave no surface indication of the thoughts which were working 35 within him, for he was unlike those sentimental, plump, thin-skinned people who cannot conceal their emotions from the world. Isom might have been dreaming of gain, or he might have been contemplating the day of loss and panic, for all that his face revealed. Sun and shadow alike passed over it, as rain and blast and summer sun pass over and beat upon a stone, leaving no mark behind save in that slow and painful wear which one must live a century to note. He looked up at his wife at length, his hand still in his beard, and studied her silently.

      “I’m not a hard man, Ollie, like some people give me the name of being,” he complained, with more gentleness in his voice than she had heard since he was courting her. He still studied her, as if he expected her to uphold common report and protest that he was hard and cruel-driving in his way. She said nothing; Isom proceeded to give himself the good rating which the world denied.

      “I’m not half as mean as some envious people would make out, if they could find anybody to take stock in what they say. If I’m not as honey-mouthed as some, that’s because I’ve got more sense than to diddle-daddle my time away in words when there’s so much to do. I’ll show you that I’m as kind at heart, Ollie, as any man in this county, if you’ll stand by me and do your part of what’s to be done without black looks and grumbles and growls.

      “I’m a good many years older than you, and maybe I’m not as light-footed and light-headed as you’d like a husband to be, but I’ve got weight to me where it counts. I could buy out two-thirds of the young fellers in this county, Ollie, all in a bunch.”

      “Yes, Isom, I guess you could,” she allowed, a weary drag in her voice.

      “I’ll put a woman in to do the work here in the fall, when I make a turn of my crops and money comes a little 36 freer than it does right now,” he promised. “Interest on my loans is behind in a good many cases, and there’s no use crowdin’ ’em to pay till they sell their wheat and hogs. If I had the ready money in hand to pay wages, Ollie, I’d put a nigger woman in here tomorrow and leave you nothing to do but oversee. You’ll have a fine easy time of it this fall, Ollie, when I turn my crops.”

      Ollie drained the dishpan and wrung out the cloths. These she hung on a line to dry. Isom watched her with approval, pleased to see her so housewifely and neat.

      “Ollie, you’ve come on wonderful since I married you,” said he. “When you come here–do you recollect?–you couldn’t hardly make a mess of biscuits that was fit to eat, and you knew next to nothing about milk and butter for all that you was brought up on a farm.”

      “Well, I’ve learned my lesson,” said she, with a bitterness which passed over Isom’s head.

      Her back was turned to him, she was reaching to hang a utensil on the wall, so high above her head that she stood on tiptoe. Isom was not insensible to the pretty lines of her back, the curve of her plump hips, the whiteness of her naked arms. He smiled.

      “Well, it’s worth money to you to know all these things,” said he, “and I don’t know but it’s just as well for you to go on and do the work this summer for the benefit of what’s to be got out of it; you’ll be all the better able to oversee a nigger woman when I put one in, and all the better qualified to take things into your own hands when I’m done and in the grave. For I’ll have to go, in fifteen or twenty years more,” he sighed.

      Ollie made no reply. She was standing with her back still turned toward him, stripping down her sleeves. But the sigh which she gave breath to sounded loud in Isom’s ears. 37

      Perhaps he thought she was contemplating with concern the day when he must give over his strivings and hoardings, and leave her widowed and alone. That may have moved him to his next excess of generosity.

      “I’m going to let Joe help you around the house a good deal, Ollie,” said he. “He’ll make it a lot easier for you this summer. He’ll carry the swill down to the hogs, and water ’em, and take care of the calves. That’ll save you a good many steps in the course of the day.”

      Ollie maintained her ungrateful silence. She had heard promises before, and she had come to that point of hopelessness where she no longer seemed to care. Isom was accustomed to her silences, also; it appeared to make little difference to him whether she spoke or held her peace.

      He sat there reflectively a little while; then got up, stretching his arms, yawning with a noise like a dog.

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