he sank down at the back door, all out of breath, old Sheba reached the
front one.

"John Jay," she called, "what you doing', chile?"

"Heah I is, Mammy," he answered. "I'se jus' takin' keer o' the chillun!"

"That's right, honey, I've got somethin' mighty good in my basket fo' we
all's suppah. Hurry up now, an' tote in some kin'lin' wood."

Never had John Jay sprung to obey as he did then. He shivered when he
thought of his narrow escape. His arms were piled so full of wood that
he could scarcely see over them, when he entered the poorly lighted
little cabin. He stumbled over the bottle of corn and the picture-book.
Maybe he would not have kicked them aside so gaily had he known that his
precious watch was lying in the cow-path on the side of the hill where
Ivy had dropped it.

Mammy was bending over, examining something at her feet. Five ragged
strips of pink calico lay along the floor, each held fast at one end by
a rusty tack driven into the puncheons. Ivy had grown tired of her
bondage, and had tugged and twisted until she got away. The faithful
tacks had held fast, but the pink calico, grown thin with long wear and
many washings, tore in ragged strips. Mammy glanced from the floor to
Ivy's tattered dress, and read the whole story.

Outside, across the road, Uncle Billy leaned over his front gate in the
deepening twilight, and peacefully puffed at his corn-cob pipe. As the
smoke curled up he bent his head to listen, as he had done in the early
morning. The day was ending as it had begun, with the whack of old