You might as well stop nagging me, Sairy. My mind
is made up."
To make sure that there would be no more conversation on the subject, he
got up and stalked across the grass. He lay down under another tree, out
of hearing distance. Sarah sat on the log for a long time. Abe came back
and sat down beside her. He could tell, by looking at her, that she had
been talking to his father about letting him go to school. He knew,
without asking any questions, that his father had said no.
Sarah laid her hand on his knee. "Your pa is a good man," she said
loyally. "Maybe he will change his mind."
10
[Illustration]
"Hurry up and eat your breakfast, Abe," said Tom the next morning. "We're
going to cut corn for that skinflint, John Carter."
Sarah passed her husband a plate of hot cornbread. "Why, Tom, it ain't
fitting to talk that way about a neighbor. Before the children, too."
Tom poured a generous helping of sorghum molasses over his bread. "I'm
an honest man. It's fitting that I call Carter what he is, and he's a
skinflint. He is only paying Abe and me ten cents a day."
"Other folks pay you two-bits.
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