“Well, what do you think of the new hand?” asked Isom, following her with his eyes.
“I didn’t pay any particular notice to him,” said she, her back toward him as she stood scraping a pan at the sink.
“Did you hear what he said to me this morning when he was standin’ there by the steps?”
“No, I didn’t hear,” listlessly, indifferently.
“H’m–I thought you was listening.”
“I just looked out to see who it was.”
“No difference if you did hear, Ollie,” he allowed generously–for Isom. “A man’s wife ought to share his business secrets, according to my way of lookin’ at it; she’s got a right to know what’s going on. Well, I tell you that chap talked up to me like a man!”
Isom smacked his lips over the recollection. The promise of it was sweet to his taste.
Ollie’s heart stirred a little. She wondered if someone had entered that house at last who would be able to set at defiance its stern decrees. She hoped that, if so, this breach in the grim wall might let some sunlight in time into her own 34 bleak heart. But she said nothing to Isom, and he talked on.
“I made a good pick when I lit on that boy,” said he, with that old wise twist of the head; “the best pick in this county, by a long shot. I choose a man like I pick a horse, for the blood he shows. A blooded horse will endure where a plug will fall down, and it’s the same way with a man. Ollie, don’t you know that boy’s got as good a strain in him as you’ll find in this part of the country?”