The old man changed places with his son. A smile of calm resignation lit up his wrinkled face, as he sed, "Now, sir, I am ready!"
"What mean you, old man!" I sed.
"I mean that if you continner to bran'ish that blade as you have been bran'ishin' it, you'll slash hout of some of us before we're a hour older!"
There was some reason mingled with this white-haired old peasant's profanity. It was true that I had twice escaped mowing off his son's legs, and his father was perhaps naturally alarmed.
I went and sat down under a tree. "I never know'd a literary man in my life," I overheard the old man say, "that know'd anything."
Mr. Perkins was not as valuable to me this season as I had fancied he might be. Every afternoon he disappeared from the field regularly, and remained about some two hours. He sed it was headache. He inherited it from his mother. His mother was often taken in that way, and suffered a great deal.
At the end of the two hours Mr. Perkins would reappear with his head neatly done up in a large wet rag, and say he "felt better."
One afternoon it so happened that I soon followed the invalid to the house, and as I neared the porch I heard a female voice energetically observe, "You stop!" It was the voice of the hired girl, and she added, "I'll holler for Mr. Brown!"
"Oh no, Nancy," I heard the invalid E. Perkins soothingly say, "Mr. Brown knows I love you. Mr. Brown approves of it!"
This was pleasant for Mr. Brown!