“Thank you,” he said weakly.
“I allus admire to see a man that can use his dukes. Head hurt you much?”
“Yes,” the boy said truthfully.
“Hard luck! But you gotta expect bangs and bruises in this world, bub. What’s your old man think about it?”
“He said if it lost me my job here, God help me,” returned Nathan defiantly.
Caleb was silent for a time. Grim humor lurked in his hard old eye. Twice he lurched forward, raised the cover and spat in the bowels of the dead iron stove.
“That so? Sort of a goldarn slave-driver, your old man, ain’t he?”
Nathan offered no comment.
“Whatcher want to go gettin’ into that fuss with Plumb for, anyhow?”
“I was writing something—private—and Si came up and grabbed it away. Then he wouldn’t give it back.”