The threshing outfit with which Sam worked was owned by a man named Joe, who was in debt for it to the maker and who, after working with the men all day, drove about the country half the night making deals with farmers for other days of threshing. Sam thought that he looked constantly on the point of collapse through overwork and worry, and one of the men, who had been with Joe through several seasons, told Sam that at the end of the season their employer did not have enough money left from his season of work to pay the interest on the debt for his machines and that he continually took jobs for less than the cost of doing them.
“One has to keep going,” said Joe, when one day Sam began talking to him on the matter.
When told to keep Sam’s wage until the end of the season he looked relieved and at the end of the season came to Sam, looking more worried and said that he had no money.
“I will give you a note bearing good interest if you can let me have a little time,” he said.
Sam took the note and looked at the pale, drawn face peering out of him from the shadows at the back of the barn.
“Why do you not drop the whole thing and begin working for some one else?” he asked.
Joe looked indignant.
“A man wants independence,” he said.
When Sam got again upon the road he stopped at a little bridge over a stream, and tearing up Joe’s note watched the torn pieces of it float away upon the brown water.