"Come in."
"How are ye, George," said the Deacon, looking hastily about the room, and delightfully determining, from the patient face of sad-eyed Mrs. Hay and the scanty furnishing of the yet uncleared breakfast-table, that he had been providentially guided to the right spot. "How's times with ye?"
"Not very good, Deac'n," replied Hay. "Nothin' much doin' in town."
"Money's awful sceerce," groaned the Deacon.
"Dreadful," responded George, devoutly thanking the Lord that he owed the Deacon nothing.
"Got much to do this winter?" asked the Deacon.
"Not by a d—day's job—not a single day," sorrowfully replied Hay.
The Deacon's pious ear had been shocked by the young man's imperfectly concealed profanity, and for an instant he thought of administering a rebuke, but the charms of prospective cheap labor lured the good man from the path of rectitude.
"I'm fixin' my cow-shed—might p'raps give ye a job on't. 'Spose ye'd do it cheap, seein' how dull ev'ry thin' is?"
The sad eyes of Mrs. Hay grew bright in an instant. Her husband's heart jumped up, but he knew to whom he was talking, so he said, as calmly as possible: