When he went up to his little attic room after supper he sat on his
shucks pallet in the darkness and thought of all the evil that he should
like to do. He should like to pull Sairy Jane's plait and to slap Jubal.
He should even like to tell Juliet Burwell that he didn't want to keep a
clean heart, and to call God names. No, he would not become a minister
and preach the Gospel. He would be a thief instead and break into
hen-houses and steal chickens. If his father planted watermelons he
would steal them from the vines as soon as they were ripe. Perhaps
Eugenia would help him. At any rate he would go halves with her if she
would be his partner in wickedness. He had just as soon go to hell,
after all--if it were not for Thomas Jefferson.

He leaned his head on his hands and looked through the narrow window to
where the peanut fields lay in blackness. From the stable came the faint
neigh of the old mare, and he remembered suddenly that he had forgotten
to put straw in her stall and to loosen her halter that she might lie
down. He rose and stole softly downstairs and out of the house.




IX


One evening in late autumn Nicholas went into Delphy's cabin after
supper and found Eugenia seated upon the hearth, facing Uncle Ish and
Aunt Verbeny. Between them Delphy's son-in-law, Moses, was helping
Bernard mend a broken hare trap, while Delphy, herself, was crooning a
lullaby to one of her grandchildren as she carded the wool which she had
taken from a quilt of faded patchwork. On the stones of the great