“Yes: you’d want good fires every night; but I can’t help it, old fellow. Only one could go, and you’d be happier with the work and excitement than you would be moping at the house, all alone, and watching for me to come back.”
“But that would be just as bad for you, Joe; and you’d be thinking that the lions had got me.”
“No, I shouldn’t; but I should be trembling for the oxen, my boy. There, I’ve made up my mind to send you, and you’ll go.”
“Oh, I’ll go,” said Dyke sturdily; “but why not go to Oom Schlagen? it’s twenty miles nearer. He has a much better lot of things and is more civil than Morgenstern.”
“Yes, I know all that, little un,” said Emson; “but Morgenstern is honest. He charges well for his corn and meal, but he’ll give you just measure, and will deal with you as fairly as he would with me. Old Uncle Schlagen would, as soon as he saw you—a boy—coming alone, set to work to see if he couldn’t rob you of a span of oxen, saying they were his, and trick you over the stores in every way he could.”
“Then I’ll go to old Morningstar’s.”
“You won’t mind going?”
“Oh yes, I shall, because it will be so lonely; but I’ll go.”
“I don’t like sending you, little un; and there’s another difficulty.”
“Oh, never mind that; it’s all difficulties out here.”