"I dunno's I am a-caring for a job of that sort," answered Kelsey. "I've got a sight of work of my own that had oughter be did." "That's so," said Beardsley, glancing at the broken fences, the bare wood-yard and the briars that were encroaching upon the borders of the little field. "But there's no ready money in your work, while there is a sight of it up to the Grays." "I won't work for no sich," declared Kelsey. "They think too much of their niggers." "They set a heap more store by them nor they do by such poor folks as you be. But you needn't bother. They won't take you and give you a chance to keep your head above water, and put a bite of grub into the mouths of your family and a few duds on their backs. They allowed that they wouldn't have no such trifling hound as you on their place." "Did Mrs. Gray use them words about me?" exclaimed Kelsey, growing excited on the instant. "I heard somebody say them very words, but I aint naming no names; nor I aint been nowheres except up to Mrs. Gray's to-day. One of 'em allowed that if you wasn't too doggone useless to live, you'd go and 'list on the Island." "I'm jest as good as they be," said the man, who by this time was looking as though he felt very ugly. "That's so. And some of 'em likewise said that a man who was too lazy to keep a tight roof over his own head, when he could have nails and boards by asking for 'em, wouldn't do no good as an overseer," added Beardsley, counting the holes in the top of the cabin through which the rafters could be seen, and glancing at the stick chimney, which leaned away from the wall as if it were about to topple over. "But that aint what I come here for, to carry tales about my neighbors. I want to say I'm glad to see you doing so well, and that if you are needing a small side of meat and a little meal, you know where to get 'em." "Sarvant, sah," replied Kelsey. "That there is more neighbor-like than demeaning a man for a trifling hound because he is pore, and I'll bear it in mind, I bet you. As for my roof, it's a heap better'n the one them Grays will have to cover them in a week from now; you hear me? That big house of theirn will burn like a bresh-heap." "Well, take care of yourself," answered the captain. "But if I'd suspicioned you was going to fly mad about it, I wouldn't 'a' spoke a word to you." "Kelsey will never carry out his threat," said Colonel Shelby, as the two rode away from the cabin. "He is too big a coward." "I know that mighty well, but you can say that you heard him speak them very words, can't you?"