“You hain’t the only boarder, I hear tell.”
“No; Miss Ducharme is there, too.”
“I want to know,” said Zaanan, his eyes twinkling again. “Makes it pleasanter, I calc’late—you two young folks together.”
“I think Miss Ducharme could bear up under the blow if I were to board some place else.”
“Um!” said Zaanan. “Mill hain’t runnin’ very good, I hear.”
“That’s what I came to see you about—that and other things.”
“Good mill, hain’t it? New machines? Ought to run, hadn’t it?”
“It ought to and it’s going to. But, Judge, it looks a lot as if somebody didn’t want it to.”
“Um! That might mean consid’able and it might mean nothin’. Accordin’ to my notion one of the easiest ways of givin’ information is to think up words that mean what you want to tell and then to say ’em. Beatin’ round the bush may scare up a rabbit, but you hain’t huntin’ rabbits. Eh?”
“Well, then, somebody has been tampering with our machinery to make it break down. Somebody has been driving nails into our logs to dull our saws. Whoever it is has made us shut down five hours in the last three days.”