Joe had walked three miles, the consuming fires of his growing body were demanding food. The odors of breakfast struck him with keen relish as he waited at the steps of the porch, unseen by Isom Chase, who had lifted his face from the basin with much snorting, and was now drying it on a coarse brown towel.
“Oh, you’re here,” said he, seeing Joe as he turned to hang up the towel. “Well, come on in and eat your breakfast. We ought to ’a’ been in the field nearly an hour ago.”
Hungry as he was, Joe did not advance to accept the invitation, which was not warmed by hospitality, indeed, but sounded rather like a command. He stood where he had stopped, and pushed his flap-brimmed hat back from his forehead, in nervous movement of decision. Chase turned, half-way to the door, looking back at his bound boy with impatience.
“No need for you to be bashful. This is home for a good while to come,” said he.
“I’m not so very bashful,” Joe disclaimed, placing the little roll which contained his one extra shirt on the wash-bench near the door, taking off his hat, then, and standing serious and solemn before his new master.
“Well, I don’t want to stand here waitin’ on you and dribble away the day, for I’ve got work to do!” said Isom sourly.
“Yes, sir,” said Joe, yielding the point respectfully, but standing his ground; “but before I go across your doorstep, and sit at your table and break bread with you, I want you to understand my position in this matter.” 26
“It’s all settled between your mother and me,” said Chase impatiently, drawing down his bayoneted eyebrows in a frown, “there’s no understanding to come to between me and you–you’ve got nothing to say in the transaction. You’re bound out to me for two years and three months at ten dollars a month and all found, and that settles it.”
“No, it don’t settle it,” said Joe with rising heat; “it only begins it. Before I put a bite in my mouth in this house, or set my hand to any work on this place, I’m going to lay down the law to you, Mr. Chase, and you’re going to listen to it, too!”
“Now, Joe, you’ve got too much sense to try to stir up a row and rouse hard feelin’s between us at the start,” said Isom, coming forward with his soft-soap of flattery and crafty conciliation.