“Yes,” she replied, and then stood looking curiously at the strangers.
“She does a good share of my housework for me,” La Fay went on. “I do the washing and the butter-making myself, and I get a woman to help once in a while in baking and mending. I can make as nice butter as any woman in this county. Look at my hands. They’re hard, but they’re smooth and clean. A farmer’s hands needn’t be rough and rusty if he’ll only use soap and water enough, and be particular about it. I work as hard on my farm as any man about here, and I’m often up half the night blacksmithing, but I don’t believe there’s a man in the town can show such hands as those.”
He looked toward the girl once more and continued, “The young one’s mother ran away from her home two months ago. I never want to set eyes on her again. We didn’t get along over-well together, sometimes. She had a temper, and I had a temper. I tell you, I smoke, and I drink, and I swear like the Old Nick; but I don’t steal, and I don’t lie, and I don’t get drunk. Mary was like me, only there were times when she’d take too much drink. Then she’d flare up if I went to reasoning with her. The week before she left, she caught up a big meat knife she’d been using and flung it at me so savage that if I hadn’t dodged quicker’n lightning ’twould have clipped my head, sure. It stuck in the wall and the point broke off. Well, I must get to haying now; but come round to the house any time. If Birdie or myself ain’t there, you’ll find the key to the back door behind the blind of the window that’s right next to it. Go right in whenever you please. I know you fellows are honest. I know an honest man when I see him. I’d trust you with my pocketbook or anything. I don’t care what church you go to, or if you don’t go at all. I can tell what a man’s made of by his looks. There’s some folks that I wouldn’t want to be on the same side of the fence with. I tell you, money and policy count for a great deal in this world, I despise ’em.”
A LOG HOUSE
He turned to the little girl and said, “Run in and get your hat Birdie, we must get in two or three loads before dinner, if we can.”
The campers with their spade went through the strip of woods La Fay had indicated, and found a pretty bit of pasture beyond. The falls were in plain hearing in the ravine below, and they found a little level just suited for the tent, and not far away a fine spring of clear, cold water. Lastly, they noticed that one corner of the lot was a briery tangle of blackberry vines that hung heavy with ripe berries. This they thought an undoubted paradise—every delight at their tent door. First they ate their fill of berries, and then went down into the hollow. The bed of the stream was strewn with great bowlders. Around towered the full-leaved trees. A little above was the fall, making its long tumble down a narrow cleft of the rocky wall.
AN EARLY SNOW
The boys made a crossing by jumping from rock to rock in the bed of the stream. Below, they found the ford and the old road, and went up the path and across the pasture to their tent. It was something of a task getting their traps over to the new camping-place, but by noon the white canvas was again in place and they had dinner. By aid of the spade they gave the end poles of the tent a firm setting, and they dug a trench on the uphill side of the camp to protect them from overflow in case of rain.