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 end of the breakfast table, pouring weak coffee, his brother and Dan and Jerry were in their chairs, and Mahailey was baking griddle cakes at the stove.  A moment later Mr. Wheeler came down the enclosed stairway and walked the length of the table to his own place.  He was a very large man, taller and broader than any of his neighbours.  He seldom wore a coat in summer, and his rumpled shirt bulged out carelessly over the belt of his trousers.  His florid face was clean shaven, likely to be a trifle tobacco-stained about the mouth, and it was conspicuous both for good-nature and coarse humour, and for an imperturbable physical composure.  Nobody in the county had ever seen Nat Wheeler flustered about anything, and nobody had ever heard him speak with complete seriousness.  He kept up his easy-going, jocular affability even with his own family.

As soon as he was seated, Mr. Wheeler reached for the two-pint sugar bowl and began to pour sugar into his coffee.  Ralph asked him if he were going to the circus.  Mr. Wheeler winked.

“I shouldn’t wonder if I happened in town sometime before the elephants get away.”  He spoke very deliberately, with a State-of-Maine drawl, and his voice was smooth and agreeable.  “You boys better start in early, though.  You can take the wagon and the mules, and load in the cowhides.  The butcher has agreed to take them.”

Claude put down his knife.  “Can’t we have the car?  I’ve washed it on purpose.”

“And what about Dan and Jerry?  They want to see the circus just as much as you do, and I want the hides should go in; they’re bringing a good price now.  I don’t mind about your washing the car; mud preserves the paint, they say, but it’ll be all right this time, Claude.”