wrung out his wet rags and, beyond a nod, paid no attention to
them. Somehow his father always managed to have the roughest and
dirtiest hired men in the country working for him. Claude had a
grievance against Jerry just now, because of his treatment of one
of the horses.

Molly was a faithful old mare, the mother of many colts; Claude
and his younger brother had learned to ride on her. This man
Jerry, taking her out to work one morning, let her step on a
board with a nail sticking up in it. He pulled the nail out of
her foot, said nothing to anybody, and drove her to the
cultivator all day. Now she had been standing in her stall for
weeks, patiently suffering, her body wretchedly thin, and her leg
swollen until it looked like an elephant's. She would have to
stand there, the veterinary said, until her hoof came off and she
grew a new one, and she would always be stiff. Jerry had not been
discharged, and he exhibited the poor animal as if she were a
credit to him.

Mahailey came out on the hilltop and rang the breakfast bell.
After the hired men went up to the house, Claude slipped into the
barn to see that Molly had got her share of oats. She was eating
quietly, her head hanging, and her scaly, dead-looking foot
lifted just a little from the ground. When he stroked her neck
and talked to her she stopped grinding and gazed at him
mournfully. She knew him, and wrinkled her nose and drew her
upper lip back from her worn teeth, to show that she liked being
petted. She let him touch her foot and examine her leg.

When Claude reached the kitchen, his mother was sitting at one