“It’s my opinion, Tom, that she’s one o’ them kind, that ef she can’t find no land she’ll make a little bit. I’ve seen ’em before, an’ they can bamboozle the eye teeth out of a tightwad ef they really try. She’s really tryin’ now. She wants this here cottage bad, an’ I intend she’ll have it.”
Tom squinted his eyes and observed his chief thoughtfully remarking after a while:
“H’m!”
Pretty soon the chief arose, took up his implements of work and went up to the little house. He studied the foundation for a few moments and then he began with his pick to work about it, loosening the stones in which it was set. Tom arose and followed him, watching his movements a moment. Then he raised his eyes to the side of the little structure as if for the first time he observed it as a dwelling, a housing place for a human being.
“That’s a purty vine,” he observed, “too bad it has to die.”
“It ain’t agoin’ to die,” said the chief. “We’re agoin’ to save it. Where’s that there big lard kettle we bed around here? See ef it’s inside the hedge.”
Tom foraged behind the hedge and brought a battered tin can.
The chief dug carefully about the roots of the vine, in a good-sized circle, dug it deeply and neatly and together they lifted the roots of the vine with the earth firmly about it, and fitted it into the lard kettle.
“Now, we’ll hev to work it so’s this here don’t git disturbed when we move her,” said the chief.
Tom found a bit of board and some nails among their tools behind the hedge, and made a little shelf on the side of the building upon which they set the can, nailing it firmly to the house so that it would not be disturbed.