“Yes. I left Boggs for good a couple of hours ago. He’s a hard, cruel, grasping tyrant—that’s what he is. You know I threatened to cut loose from him weeks ago, but somehow I didn’t seem to be able to muster up the backbone to do it. But it’s all over now. He beat me black and blue with a whip this morning because one of the cows broke down the corner of the pasture fence and got into the truck patch. I think he’d have killed me only I hit him over the head with the handle of a rake. Then I got my clothes and ran away.”
For a moment Dick was silent.
He felt sad at the thought of losing the best friend he had in the neighborhood.
It is true he had only known Joe Fletcher five months, which was about the length of time Joe had been working for Farmer Boggs, but a natural sympathy had drawn the two boys together.
Both early in life had been thrown upon their own resources, and both were subservient to hard taskmasters, though if there was any choice in the matter, Silas Maslin was perhaps a shade better than Nathan Boggs.
The latter was notorious throughout the county for the way he treated his hired help, particularly if that help happened to be a boy.
Boggs’ method was to hire a stout boy or an able-bodied, newly arrived foreigner for a period of six months, with the understanding that if the hand quit work before the end of the stipulated term of service he was to forfeit all his pay.
The farmer then managed to make things so hard for his help as the weeks went by that they found the place simply unendurable and were glad to disappear of a sudden without making any very serious demand for what was due them.
Fletcher had managed to weather the ills that clung about Boggs’ farm for five months, for he was blessed with a good temper and much patience, and Nathan, fearing the boy would last the limit and that he would be obliged to pay him the sum of $60 for which he had contracted, adopted a specially rigorous line of conduct toward him, which culminated that morning with a most inhuman beating, after which Joe gave up the struggle.
“Where are you going?” asked Dick, at length.