A man was chopping wood a few steps from the house. Mr. March called to him.
"This isn't Garland's, is it?"
Instead of replying, the man laid down his axe, and walked slowly out to the road, staring very hard at them all.
"Be you the folks that's comin' to live to Garland's?" he said.
"Yes," said the Deacon; "and we hope this isn't the place; if 'tis, we hain't been told the truth, that's all."
"Oh, Lor', no," laughed the man. "This ain't Garland's; his place's two mile farther on. That ain't no great shakes of a place, either,—Garland's ain't; but he's got more land'n we have. There ain't land enough here to raise a ground mole in. I'm sick on 't."
"You don't get daylight enough to raise any thing, for that matter," said Mr. March; "here it is the middle of the afternoon, by the clock, and past sundown for you."
"I know it," said the man; "but there's something in the air here which kind o' makes up for every thing. I don't know how 'tis, but we've had our healths first rate ever since we've lived here. But I'm going to move down to the Springs: it's too lonesome up here, and there ain't nothin' to do. Be you goin' into stock?"
"Not much," said Mr. March. "We are only trying an experiment here: we have bought all Garland's cows."
"Have ye?" said the man. "Well, Garland had some first-rate cattle; but they're pretty well peaked out now. Cattle gets dreadful poor here, along in March and April: ye'd reelly pity 'em. But it's amazin' how they pick up's soon's the grass comes in June. It don't seem to hurt 'em none to be kinder starved all winter. Come and see us: we're neighborly folks out'n this country. My wife she'll be glad to know there's some wimmen folks in the Pass. She's been the only woman here for a year. Garland he bached it: he hadn't no wife."