“Everything all right?” Caleb asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t have to call me sir.”
Peter looked embarrassed.
“I know.”
Caleb waited while the boy stared at the coins.
“You can tell me if there’s trouble,” he said.
Peter swallowed.
“My last employer hasn’t paid me for six weeks.”
“Who was he?”
“Mr. Harlan, the wagon maker near the market.”
“Did you have an agreement?”
“He said I’d be paid when the season improved.”
“And did the season improve?”
Peter gave a bitter little smile.
“He bought a second horse.”
Caleb sat beside him.
“Have you asked for the money?”
“Twice.”
“What did he say?”
“That he fed me and let me sleep over the shop.”
“Did he say that was part of the payment before you began?”
“No.”
Caleb looked down at his hands.
He knew too well how a person in power could turn ordinary survival into a debt that never ended.
But Peter was not Caleb, and the choices available to him were different.
He could travel, seek other work, and complain publicly without facing the same legal barriers Caleb had lived beneath.
Recognizing that difference did not make the withheld wages less wrong.
“Would you like me to speak to Daniel about it?” Caleb asked.
Peter looked frightened.
“I don’t want to lose this job too.”
“Daniel isn’t Harlan.”
“People say that until somebody asks them for money.”
Caleb did not argue.
He remembered the confidence with which Eleanor had described her power over the ledger.
“Then let’s ask what your new employer believes a fair agreement should look like,” he said.
The next morning Caleb brought Peter into the workshop while Daniel Fitch was fitting hoops around a barrel.
“Peter has a question about wages,” Caleb said.
Daniel set down his mallet.
“Ask it.”
Peter stared at the workbench.
“Would you put our agreement on paper?”
Daniel looked surprised.
“I thought we had an understanding.”
“We do,” Peter said quickly.
“I would feel better if I could read it.”
Daniel regarded the boy, then turned toward Caleb.
“You think I ought to write it down?”
“I think he ought to be able to ask,” Caleb answered.
The cooper wiped his hands on a rag and went to fetch a sheet of paper.
Together they wrote the weekly rate, the hours ordinarily expected, and the extra pay for work done on the Sabbath or after dark.
Peter asked whether money could be withheld for a broken tool.
