“Give me a receipt on account.”
When it was written he walked out, leaving Eliphalet stupefied.
Joshua Carr was at work, one June afternoon, by the roadside, in front of his low cottage, by an enormous pile of poles, which he was shaving down for barrel-hoops, when Eph appeared.
“Hard at it, Joshua!” he said.
“Yes, yes!” said Joshua, looking up through his steel-bowed spectacles. “Hev to work hard to make a livin'—though I don't know's I ought to call it hard, neither; and yet it is ruther hard, too; but then, on t' other hand, 't ain't so hard as a good many other things—though there is a good many jobs that's easier. That's so! that 's so!
'Must we be kerried to the skies
On feathery beds of ease?'
Though I don't know's I ought to quote a hymn on such a matter; but then—I don' know's there's any partic'lar harm in't, neither.”
Eph sat down on a pile of shavings and chewed a sliver; and the old man kept on at his work.
“Hoop-poles goin' up and hoops goin' down,” he continued. “Cur'us, ain't it? But then, I don' know as 'tis; woods all bein' cut off—poles gittin' scurcer—hoops bein' shoved in from Down East. That don't seem just right, now, does it? But then, other folks must make a livin', too. Still, I should think they might take up suthin' else; and yet, they might say that about me. Understand, I don't mean to say that they actually do say so; I don't want to run down any man unless I know—”