The news of this generous payment was spread throughout the country, and took the edge off the criticism of Baldwin. “Is that you, Lena?” asked Mrs. Wycliff, one evening. “I think it is,” was the answer. “Here’s a check for a thousand dollars, for your husband. Tell him he has earned it. I have said all along that John could make the Baldwins toe the mark. He is almost the only one about here who is not afraid of them, and he is the only one who hits them in the only place where they feel it,--in the newspapers. They don’t care anything about right and wrong, God, man or the devil, but they don’t like to have their injustice shown up in the newspapers, or in the courts. They don’t fear God, or His Word, or the Judgment Day, but they are afraid of newspapers and courts. I don’t care for the twenty thousand dollars myself, but with the income from it I can give my boys a good education. Tell John I hear that Zack Baldwin will give a thousand dollars to get him out of town. This thousand is for him to stay.” CHAPTER IX. A frequent caller at the Wycliff home was “Uncle Jerry” Barnaby. He was always welcome, being an old friend, the acquaintance between the two families dating back to the time when both occupied farms in Sprucemont--the little hill-town, richer in broad views and fresh air than in salable commodities. “Oh, I was a king, then!” said Uncle Jerry. “Only think of those beautiful fields of grass and grain that I used to have.” “And how much labor you spent in getting out the rocks and improving the land, before you could have those crops,” replied Mrs. Wycliff. “Yes, I was the first farmer in all that region to use dynamite, both on my farm and on the highways. Oh, I was a king then; king of my own farm, anyway. And now I am a slave to these sleek villains, the Baldwins. The tears come to my eyes whenever I think of those old times; and of those sleek cattle that had been petted so much by my wife and the girls that it seemed like sacrilege to sell them; they seemed to belong to the family.” And Uncle Jerry burst into tears at his own recital of former glories. “To think that I should have come to this,” exclaimed Uncle Jerry. “To be a slave,--a poor, despised, down-trodden slave for the Baldwins,--and I used to be a king of two hundred acres in Sprucemont. “And those colts, the beautiful creatures. When I went into the pasture they would come up to me and lay their noses on my cheeks, and almost talk to me. How many colts I have raised to be fine horses, and sold for good prices, and my wife and daughters could always ride anywhere they chose, and to-day--” and Uncle Jerry could not proceed for some minutes for sobbing.