The Bondboy

ath, so that it might come to them without a master and under the free sky. Only the disgraced, the disowned, the failures, and the broken-minded made an end in the poorhouse in those vigorous days. It was a disgrace from which a family never could hope to rise again. There, on the old farm with Peter she had been poor, as poor as the poorest, but they had been free to come and go.

"I know I've got the name of being a hard man and a money-grabber and a driver," said Chase with crabbed bitterness, "but who is it that gives that reputation to me? People that can't beat me and take advantage of me and work money out of me by their rascally schemes! I'm not a hard man by nature--my actions with you prove that, don't they?"

"You've been as kind as a body could expect," she answered. "It's only right that you should have your money back, and it ain't been your fault that we couldn't raise it. But we've done the best we could."

"And that best only led you up to the poorhouse door," said he. "I'm