“How much time?” said I.
“Well, that piece of timber you see over there,—that’s Eph Martin’s; he’s going to cut it next season. The biggest trees must be—well, perhaps eighty years old. You reckon up the interest on the cost of the land, and you’ll see it’s a good investment. I wish I had such a piece.”
“Why don’t you plant one?” said I.
“O, I’m too old! My grandfather ought to have done it for me. Whoa! Doc. Whoa! Tim.”
He drew up at a large, red barn, where a man and a boy were grinding a scythe. I jumped down, and trudged on.
After I had gone a mile or two, I began to feel hungry, and sat done on a stone, under a great oak tree, to eat a sandwich. Before I knew it I had eaten two, and then I was thirsty. There was a well in a door-yard close by, and I went to it. The bucket was too heavy for me to lift, and so I turned the salt out of my cup in a little pile on a clean-looking corner of the well-curb, and drank.
The woman of the house came to the door, and took a good look at me; then she asked if I would not rather have a drink of milk. I said I would, and she brought a large bowlful, which I sat down on the door-step to enjoy.
Presently a sun-browned, barefooted boy, wearing a new chip hat, and having his trousers slung by a single suspender, came around the corner of the house, and stopped before me.
“Got any Shanghais at your house?” said he.
“No!”