“He wants a young fellow about his store, he says, as can look arter the books an’ the business.  He’s gittin’ too old to keep up with the city ways an’ look peart at the ladies—­he’ll pay a nice little sum in cash every week.”

“Yes?” repeated Nicholas, still interrogatively.

“An’ he wants to know if you’ll take the place—­you’re jest the sort of chap he wants, he says—­somebody as will be bright at praisin’ up the calicky to the gals when they come shoppin’.  Thar’s nothin’ like a young man behind the counter to draw the gals, he says.”

Nicholas shook his head impatiently, clasping the books tightly beneath his arm.  His gaze had grown harsh and repellent.

“But I am going into the judge’s office,” he answered.  “I am going—­” Then he checked himself, baffled by the massive ignorance he confronted.

Amos Burr drew one shoulder from the fire and offered the other.  A slow steam rose from his smoking shirt, and the room was filled with the odour of scorching cotton.

“Thar ain’t much cash in that, I reckon,” he said.

Nicholas took a step forward, still facing his father with obstinate eyes.  One of the books slipped from his arm and fell to the floor, with open leaves, but he let it lie.  He was watching his father’s jaws as they rose and fell over the quid of tobacco.

“No, there is not much cash in that,” he repeated.

“Things have gone mighty hard,” said Amos Burr.  “It’s been a bad year.  I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ ‘bout the work yo’ ma an’ Sairy Jane an’ me have done.  That don’t seem to count, somehow.  But nothin’ ain’t come straight, an’ thar ain’t a cent to pay the taxes.  If we can’t manage to tide over this comin’ winter thar’ll have to be a mortgage in the spring.”

Sairy Jane began to cry softly.  One of the children joined in.

“Give me time,” said Nicholas breathlessly.  “Give me time.  I’ll pay it all in time.”  Then the sound of Sairy Jane’s sobs maddened him and he turned upon her with an oath.  “Damn you!  Can’t you be quiet?”

It seemed to him that they were all closing upon him and that there was no opening of escape.

Marthy Burr put down her iron and came to where he stood, laying her hand upon his sleeve.

“Don’t mind ’em, Nick,” she said, and her sharp voice broke suddenly.  “Go ahead an’ make a man of yo’self, mortgage or no mortgage.”

Nicholas lifted his gaze from the floor and looked into his stepmother’s face.  Then he looked at her hand as it lay upon his arm.  That trembling hand brought to him more fully than words, more clearly than visions, the pathos of her life.

“Don’t you worry, ma,” he said quietly at last.  “It’ll be all right.  Don’t you worry.”

Then he let her hand slip from his shoulder and left the room.

He passed out upon the back porch and stood gazing vacantly across the outlook.

It rained heavily, the drops descending in horizontal lengths like a fantastic fall of colourless pine needles.  Overhead the clouds were black, impenetrable.