“Si, I do not know what we are going to do.  The children are not fit to be seen, their clothes are in such a state.  But there’s something more serious still.—­There is scarcely a bite in the house to eat”

“Why, Nancy, go to Johnson——.”

“Johnson indeed!  You took that man’s part when he hadn’t a friend in the world, and you built him up and made him rich.  And here’s the result of it:  He lives in our fine house, and we live in his miserable log cabin.  He has hinted to our children that he would rather they wouldn’t come about his yard to play with his children,—­which I can bear, and bear easy enough, for they’re not a sort we want to associate with much—­but what I can’t bear with any quietness at all, is his telling Franky our bill was running pretty high this morning when I sent him for some meal —­and that was all he said, too—­didn’t give him the meal—­turned off and went to talking with the Hargrave girls about some stuff they wanted to cheapen.”

“Nancy, this is astounding!”

“And so it is, I warrant you.  I’ve kept still, Si, as long as ever I could.  Things have been getting worse and worse, and worse and worse, every single day; I don’t go out of the house, I feel so down; but you had trouble enough, and I wouldn’t say a word—­and I wouldn’t say a word now, only things have got so bad that I don’t know what to do, nor where to turn.”  And she gave way and put her face in her hands and cried.

“Poor child, don’t grieve so.  I never thought that of Johnson.  I am clear at my wit’s end.  I don’t know what in the world to do.  Now if somebody would come along and offer $3,000—­Uh, if somebody only would come along and offer $3,000 for that Tennessee Land.”

“You’d sell it, S!” said Mrs. Hawkins excitedly.

“Try me!”

Mrs. Hawkins was out of the room in a moment.  Within a minute she was back again with a business-looking stranger, whom she seated, and then she took her leave again.  Hawkins said to himself, “How can a man ever lose faith?  When the blackest hour comes, Providence always comes with it—­ah, this is the very timeliest help that ever poor harried devil had; if this blessed man offers but a thousand I’ll embrace him like a brother!”

The stranger said: 

“I am aware that you own 75,000 acres, of land in East Tennessee, and without sacrificing your time, I will come to the point at once.  I am agent of an iron manufacturing company, and they empower me to offer you ten thousand dollars for that land.”

Hawkins’s heart bounded within him.  His whole frame was racked and wrenched with fettered hurrahs.  His first impulse was to shout “Done! and God bless the iron company, too!”

But a something flitted through his mind, and his opened lips uttered nothing.  The enthusiasm faded away from his eyes, and the look of a man who is thinking took its place.  Presently, in a hesitating, undecided way, he said: