"That's different."

"Yes, it's different, Martin; but can you make him work?"

"No, I don't intend to try. He isn't my slave."

With overwhelming pride in her eyes, pride that shook her voice,
she exclaimed: "Not anybody's slave, and not afraid to declare
it. Billy is a different kind of a boy. He doesn't like the
farm--he hates it--"

"I know."

"He loathes everything about it. Only the other day he told me he
wished he could take it and tear it board from board, and leave
it just a piece of bleak prairie, as it was when your father
brought you here, Martin."

"You actually mean he said he would tear down what took so many
years of work to build? This farm that gives him a home and
clothes and feeds him?"

"He did, Martin. And he meant it--there was hatred burning in his
eyes. There's that in his heart which can tear and rend; and
there's that which can build. Oh, my unhappy Billy, my boy!"

"Don't get hysterical. What do you want me to do? Have I said he
must work?"

"No, but you have tried to rub it into his soul and it just can't