Farmer Jebez signs his soul to a devil named Scratch for a bit of Hessian gold. The moneylender recognizes Scratch's gold. Not even Jabez's mother's watchful eye can save him. They may smoke in Massachussets on the sabbath but not in her house! Jabez's provincialism does not help him either. Scratch appeals to his word as a New Hampshire man.
Jabez sees himself suffering like Job: his pig's leg broke, his wife fallen off the literal wagon, his seed soaked. "A man can always change things," ma says, "That's what makes him different from the barnyard critters." Jabez repents, glad of the storm and the rain and the hail. But it avails his neighbors none. Scratch engages them to serve Jabez. So they all dance on Scratch's strings.
Scarrier even than Scratch's carroty cackle is Belle before the stove. She appears, as does Jabez's newborn boy, on the night of the harvest dance. Scratch offers to take the son in lieu on the night he comes to collect Jabez. Daniel Webster intervenes. No foreign prince has the right to take an American. Scratch insists he's part and parcel of America, from the first Indian killed and so on... You're called upon to judge Jabez Stone.
Jabez sees himself suffering like Job: his pig's leg broke, his wife fallen off the literal wagon, his seed soaked. "A man can always change things," ma says, "That's what makes him different from the barnyard critters." Jabez repents, glad of the storm and the rain and the hail. But it avails his neighbors none. Scratch engages them to serve Jabez. So they all dance on Scratch's strings.
Scarrier even than Scratch's carroty cackle is Belle before the stove. She appears, as does Jabez's newborn boy, on the night of the harvest dance. Scratch offers to take the son in lieu on the night he comes to collect Jabez. Daniel Webster intervenes. No foreign prince has the right to take an American. Scratch insists he's part and parcel of America, from the first Indian killed and so on... You're called upon to judge Jabez Stone.
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