CHAPTER XIV.
THE “NIGHT-HAWKS.”
“AH, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Newcombe, “I did not expect to see you home again so soon! How long is your visit to last?”
“Visit!” repeated Tom. “I am not here on a visit. I’m here to stay. I knew I couldn’t be a farmer.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked the merchant.
“O, I wasn’t cut out for the kind of a farmer that Mr. Hayes is!” drawled Tom. “I didn’t know that I would have to sleep three in a bed, or play school-master, and I didn’t go out there to help wash clothes or take care of children. I wasn’t made to be that kind of a farmer. I wanted to be a stock raiser, like that man in Iowa.”
“Then you do not intend to go back to Mr. Hayes’s,” said his father.
“O, no, sir, I don’t,” replied Tom, emphatically. “I wouldn’t live in that family a month for all the property Mr. Hayes is worth.”