"Did you ever see such pigs?" said Ned, who was now thoroughly imbued with the fault-finding humor of his companion. "Guess they have to boil their pork; for I don't believe there's grease enough in it to fry itself."
"Did you ever see such oxen? They ain't bigger than rats—nasty, scraggly-looking things, cow-horned and cat-hammed, no necks or quarters, every hair sticking up straight. Don't believe they could twitch a spruce bush. I'll bet our old Star and Golding (just let father speak to 'em) would drag six such, tail foremost. They're welcome to their silks; I'd rather have mother's fulled cloth than all their spider's web. They're welcome to their warm weather, vines, figs, cockroaches, garlic, and all their herbs; give me three feet of snow, a good log camp, a roaring fire, and game in plenty, and they are welcome to the almond trees and pot herbs. Goodness! to call three olive trees, on a bit of ground that I could straddle, a farm. One good fat bear would make more and better grease than an acre of 'em."
"What do you suppose they would say, Walter, to see Lion Ben's acres? and what to the Lion himself?"
"Jerusalem!" said Walter, borrowing one of his brother Joe's by-words; "only let him get into one of his rages, and he would slay the whole country with the jaw-bone of an ass."
"Well," said Ned, who felt that a good part of Walter's spleen arose from the lack of the camp fire he had anticipated. "They all seemed very kind, you know; and Gabriel asked and urged us to go to his house."
"Yes; to be eaten up with fleas and ten thousand bugs and stinging concerns they have here."
Thus growling and grumbling, Walter fell asleep. The last words distinguishable were, "God-forsaken country; no wood for a camp fire."
In the morning, as the result of a consultation held while eating, they determined first to ascend the hill, and afterwards to explore the country. Here they found a long moss on the rocks, which they concluded would be just the thing with which to fill their beds, and resolved to take some of it with them when they returned.
"O, Wal, we'll dry some of these fragrant plants, and mix with the moss."
"Yes; that will be nice."