"Yes, sir, if you please."
"Then help yourself," his father roughly returned, crabbed because Ben had told the truth, and pointing to the table; whereupon the boy went to nibbling away at the crumbs and bones remaining of the lunch brought by Silas.
Little Ben was so surprisingly small for a boy of eleven that he was compelled to stand to reach the crumbs and bones, but his father regarded him as a brawny youth as tough as dogwood.
"When I was a boy of his age," Tug said to Davy, "they dressed me up in good clothes, and admired me, and thought I was about the cutest thing on earth, but I wasn't."
Davy looked up as if to inquire what he really was at Ben's age, and received an answer.
"I was an impudent imp, and detested by all the neighbors; that's the truth. My father used to go around town, and tell the people the cute things I said, instead of making me go to work, and teaching me industry; but the people didn't share his enthusiasm, and referred to me as that 'worthless Whittle boy.' Ben, what can you do?"
"I can cut corn, sir, and drive the team, and plough a little," the boy replied, startled by his father's loud voice.
"Anything else?"
"I can't remember everything, sir. I do as much as I can."
Little Ben did not look as though he could be of much use on a farm, for he was very thin, and very weak-looking; but apparently this did not occur to his father, who continued to stare at him as though he wondered at his strength.