“Huh! Guess ye wanted t’ take a rest, an’ that was your excuse fer it. Git t’ work now, an’ don’t let me see you loafin’ agin. What do ye s’pose I keep ye fer, anyhow?”
“I’m trying to do the best I can,” replied Dan, speaking respectfully but firmly to the miserly old farmer for whom he worked for his board and clothes.
“Th’ best ye can, eh? Wa’ll, some folks’ best ain’t very good, t’ my way of thinkin’. Here ye’ve been most all th’ mornin’ shellin’ a few bushels of corn, an’ there’s lots of other chores t’ be done. Ye’ve go t’ git a hustle on ye, ef ye stay ’round here, an’ th’ sooner ye git that notion inter yer head th’ better it’ll be fer ye,” and the mean farmer shook his fist in the boy’s face.
“I know I have to work for you, Mr. Savage,” answered Dan, as he again began to turn the heavy wheel of the corn sheller, and feed the yellow ears into the chute. “I did not stop to rest, as you suppose, but the sheller needed oiling. It was not working right.”
“Guess ye thought it’d be a leetle easier if ye put some grease on it, that’s what ye mean. An’ I don’t want ye wastin’ my oil, nuther. Oil costs money, I’d have ye know, and money is mighty skurse these days.”
“I guess it is, as far as I’m concerned,” murmured Dan to himself, as he bent his back to his work. “I haven’t seen any money of my own in so long that I don’t believe I’d recognize it if a quarter of a dollar spoke to me,” and he smiled a bit, in spite of the mean words of his employer.
“Now mind what I told ye,” went on the farmer, as he started to leave the barn. “Don’t let me catch ye loafin’ any more, or ye won’t git off so easy.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Savage?”
“Never mind what I mean. Don’t you talk back to me! Keep on turnin’ that sheller.”
Dan had stopped a moment in his work, while he asked the question, and this seemed to further anger Mr. Savage.