"Friend, you're right. Tew 'n' a half is reasonable. And if I have another job of land-surveyin', you are the man for my money."
"A man, am I, now?" And with a laugh the young surveyor pocketed his fee.
"Good as a man, I allow, any time o' day. You've worked at this yer thing right smart, and I'll give ye the credit on't. How long have ye been larnin the trade?"
"O, two years, more or less, studying at odd spells! But I never made a business of it until I came to this new country."
"What State be ye from?"
"New York."
"York State! That's whur I hail from."
"One wouldn't think so; you have a good many Southern and Western words in your talk."
"I come by 'em honest," said the old man. "I run away from home when I was a boy, like a derned fool; I've lived a'most everywhur; and I've married four wives, and raised four craps of children. My fust wife I picked up in ol' Kaintuck. My next was an Arkansaw woman. My third was a Michigander. My present was born and raised in the South, but I married her in Southern Illinois. She's nigh on to forty year younger 'n I be, and smart as a steel trap, tell you! So you see we're kind of a mixed-up family. My fust and second broods of children's married off, or buried,—scattered to the four winds o' heaven! Tew boys o' the third brood, and that ar Sal, is with me yit. Some of the present brood you've seen. Thar's been twenty-one in all."
"Of the fourth brood?"