“I’m turnin’ the whole farm over to you to look after like it was your own while I’m away,” said he, “and I’m doing it with the feeling that it’s in worthy hands. I know you’re not the boy to shirk on me when my back’s turned, for you never tried to do it to my face. You stand by me, Joe, and I’ll stand by you; you’ll never lose anything by it in the end.
“I may be a crabbed old feller once in a while, and snarl around some, but my bark’s worse than my bite, you know that by this time. So I’ll put everything in your hands, with a feeling that it’ll be looked after just the same as if I was here.”
“I’ll do the best I can by you,” promised Joe, his generous heart warming to Isom a little in spite of past indignities, 72 and the fact that Joe knew very well the old man’s talk was artful pretense.
“I know you will,” said Isom, patting his shoulder in fatherly approbation. “In case I’m held over there a week, you keep your eye on that agent, and don’t let him stay here a day overtime without another week’s board in advance.”
“I’ll attend to him,” promised Joe.
Isom’s hand had lingered a minute on Joe’s shoulder while he talked, and the old man’s satisfaction over the depth of muscle that he felt beneath it was great. He stood looking Joe over with quick-shifting, calculating eyes, measuring him in every part, from flank to hock, like a farrier. He was gratified to see how Joe had filled out in the past six months. If he had paid for a colt and been delivered a draft-horse, his surprise would not have been more pleasant.
As it was, he had bargained for the services of a big-jointed, long-boned lad, and found himself possessed of a man. The fine part of it was that he had nearly two years more of service at ten dollars a month coming from Joe, who was worth twenty of any man’s money, and could command it, just as he stood. That was business, that was bargaining.
Isom’s starved soul distended over it; the feeling was warm in his veins, like a gill of home-made brandy. He had him, bound body and limb, tied in a corner from which he could not escape, to send and call, to fetch and carry, for the better part of two good, profitable years.
As Isom rode away he rubbed his dry, hard hands above his saddle-horn, feeling more comfortable than he had felt for many a day. He gloated over the excellent bargain that he had made with the Widow Newbolt; he grinned at the roots of his old rusty beard. If ever a man poked himself in the ribs in the excess of self-felicitation, Isom Chase did it as he rode along on his old buckskin horse that autumn morning, with the sun just lifting over the hill. 73
It was an excellent thing, indeed, for a patriot to serve his country once in a while on a jury, thought Isom, especially when that patriot had been shrewd in his dealings with the widow and orphan, and had thus secured himself against loss at home while his country called him abroad. Jury duty was nothing but a pleasant season of relaxation in such case.