CHAPTER IX.
TOO GOOD A CHANCE TO LOSE.
Ben persuaded Joe Griffin to go home with him, stay all night, and help eat the coon. Though one of the most kind-hearted creatures that ever lived, Joe’s proclivity for practical jokes was both instinctive and inveterate. If the choice lay between making a mortal enemy for life and a good joke, he could not prevail upon himself to forego the joke. He was very shrewd withal, and would extricate himself from difficulties, and accomplish his ends by pleasantry, where others would be compelled to fight their way out, or miss of their object.
One autumn, the blacksmith, having great quantities of axes to make for the loggers, hired Joe a couple of months, as there was a great deal of striking with the sledge, and his apprentice was young and light. The smith was a very driving man, but kept his men well, and was very hospitable. He was obliged to be absent occasionally to deliver his axes. At such times his wife, who was penurious in the extreme, kept the boys very short. Joe, knowing that his master did not approve of this, resolved to put a stop to it. They worked evenings. One night the smith came home full of grit, as he had been riding and resting, and prepared to forge an axe. Placing a hot iron on the anvil, he cried, “Strike, Joe, strike.” Joe struck a few feeble blows, when exclaiming, “It’s going! it’s going! it’s all gone!” dropped his sledge on the floor, and seemed ready to faint away.
“What’s gone?” cried the smith, in a rage at having lost his heat.
“That water porridge we had for supper.”
The master then took them to the house, and gave them a hearty meal.
Once more the iron was laid upon the anvil; Joe struck tremendous blows, making the sparks fly all over the shop, crying, “It’s coming! it’s coming! it gives me strength! I feel it! I feel it!”
“What’s coming, and what do you feel?”
“That good beefsteak I had for supper.”
Joe could talk like anybody under heaven, and look like them too. He could talk more like Uncle Sam Yelf than Uncle Sam could himself. This gift, however, he used very sparingly, for he could take a joke as well as give one; felt that ’twas mean to turn the peculiarities of others into ridicule, and in a way in which they could not retaliate.