It was not so much for what it had been that her heart was tender to it, for the years had been heavy there and toilsome, disappointing and full of pain; not so much for what it had been, indeed, as what she and young Peter, with the thick black hair upon his brow, had planned to make it. It was for the romance unlived, the hope unrealized, that it was dear. And then again it was poor and pitiful, wind-shaken and old, but it was home. The thought of the desolation that waited it in the dread future struck her breast like the pangs of bereavement. Tears coursed down her face; sobs rose in her aching throat. Joe, she thought, would do that much for her and the old home place; it would be but a little more than two years of sacrifice for him, at the most, with the bright hope of independence and redemption at the end. Being bound out would not be so disgraceful as going to the poorhouse. Joe would do it for her, she was sure of that. But it would be better to wait until evening and ask him. "Joe, he'll be along home from his work about dusk," said she, "and we could let you know tomorrow." "Tomorrow," said Isom Chase, rising stiffly, "I'll have to send the sheriff here with the papers. Tomorrow, ma'am, will be too late." That dreadful picture swept across her inner vision once more--the chimney down, the house gone. She saw corn growing over the spot where she sat that moment; she remembered that Isom Chase had plowed up a burying-ground once and seeded it to timothy. "What will I have to do to bind Joe over to you?" she asked, facing him in sudden resolution. "We'll git in the buggy," said he, with new friendliness, seeing that he had won, "and drive over to Judge Little's. He can make out the papers in a few minutes, and I'll pay you a month's wages in advance. That will fix you up for groceries and garden seeds and everything, and you'll be as snug and happy as any woman in the county." In less than two hours the transaction was completed, and Sarah Newbolt was back again in the home upon which she had secured her slipping tenure at the sacrifice of her son's liberty. As she began "stirring the pots for supper," as she called it, she also had time to stir the deep waters of reflection. She had secured herself from the threat of the county farm, and Joe had been the price; Joe, her last-born, the sole remaining one of the six who had come to her and gone on again into the mists. She began to fear in her heart when she stood off and viewed the result of her desperate panic, the pangs of which Isom Chase had adroitly magnified. If Joe could work for Isom Chase and thus keep her from the poorhouse, could he not have worked for another, free to come and go as he liked, and with the same security for her?