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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I
Jed.

"HERE, you Jed!"

Jed paused in his work with his axe suspended above him, for he was splitting wood. He turned his face toward the side door at which stood a woman, thin and sharp-visaged, and asked: "Well, what's wanted?"

"None of your impudence, you young rascal! Come here, I say!"

Jed laid down the axe and walked slowly to the back door. He was a strongly-made and well-knit boy of nearly sixteen, but he was poorly dressed in an old tennis shirt and a pair of overalls. Yet his face was attractive, and an observer skilled in physiognomy would have read in it signs of a strong character, a warm and grateful disposition, and a resolute will.

"I have not been impudent, Mrs. Fogson," he said quietly.

"Don't you dare to contradict me!" snapped the woman, stamping her foot.

"What's wanted?" asked Jed again.

"Go down to the gate and hold it open. Squire Dixon will be here in five minutes, and we must treat him with respect, for he is Overseer of the Poor."

Jed smiled to himself (it was well he did not betray his amusement), for he knew that Mrs. Fogson and her husband, though tyrannical to the inmates of the poorhouse, of which they had been placed in charge by Squire Dixon three months before, were almost servile in the presence of the Overseer of the Poor, with whom it was their object to stand well.

"All right, ma'am!" he said bluntly, and started for the gate. He did not appear to move fast enough for the amiable Mrs. Fogson, for she called out in a sharp voice: "Why do you walk like a snail? Hurry up, I tell you. I see Squire Dixon coming up the road."

"I shall get to the gate before he does," announced Jed, independently, not increasing his pace a particle.

"I hate that boy!" soliloquized Mrs. Fogson, looking after him with a frown. "He is the most independent young rascal I ever came across -- he actually disobeys and defies me. I must get Fogson to give him a horse-whipping some of these fine days; and when he does, I'm going to be there and see it done!" she continued, her black eyes twinkling viciously. "Every blow he received would do me good. I'd gloat over it! I'd flog him myself if I was strong enough."