“That you will,” said John. “I don’t see how you get your cow into the barn. You can’t drive her through this cornfield; it’s all around the barn.”
“We don’t. I go out in the woods to milk. We’ve got a cow-yard there; and when it rains Joe milks.”
“You have real nice times—don’t you, Sally?”
“I guess we do, John. We work hard, but we are well and strong: work don’t hurt us, and we’ve enough to eat. Our place is paid for. There ain’t a man in the world has a right to ask Joe for a dollar, and there never was a woman had a better husband. We are just as happy as the days are long.”
After seeing the pig and hens, the boys said they must go and find Joe.
“Well, go right to the end of the corn, and you’ll hear his axe. Do you like coot stew, boys?”
“Don’t we!” said Charlie; “and haven’t had one since we left home.”
“Then you shall have one for supper. Joe shot some coots this morning.”
The boys proceeded through the woods, guided by the sound of the axe, and soon perceived their friend through the trees busily at work. Creeping cautiously on their hands and knees, they succeeded in approaching within a stone’s throw, and concealing themselves behind the roots of an upturned tree, observed his movements. For a long distance in front of him were trees cut partly through, the white chips covering the ground all around their roots. He was now at work upon an enormous red oak, with long, branching limbs. Having finished his scarf on the side next to some partially cut trees, and which had taken the tree nearly off, he wiped the sweat from his brow, and with an upward glance at the sun, leaned upon his axe-handle.
It was evident to the boys that Joe had been chopping trees partly off during the whole afternoon, and was about to fall the monster oak on them, in order to make a drive; and as he knew by the sun it was not far from supper-time, this was the last he intended to cut before supper. He had evidently done a hard day’s work. The sweat was dropping from his nose, and his clothes were saturated. Nevertheless, a smile passed over his features, as he stood with a foot on one of the great spur roots of his victim, leaning forward upon the axe-handle, evidently in a very happy frame of mind.