"Because it's not in his nature to denounce things," objected Alf.
"Neither was it in Longfellow's nature; yet Longfellow's poems on Slavery are judged worthy to form a separate section of his works. But Holmes can denounce most valiantly. He denounces witch-burning and Inquisition-persecution, like the chivalrous soul that he is. He has achieved the distinction of being the only American poet of note who blandly ignores Slavery, and takes part with the aristocrat, as against the lowly. The same spirit runs through all his writings. He has a range of about three notes: a flunkeyish koo-tooing to soap-bubble eminence; a tawdry sympathy with aristocratic woe; and a drivelling contempt for angular Poor Relations, in bombazine gowns. Bombazine, by-the-way, is a cheap, carpetty-looking fabric, built of shoddy, and generally used for home-made quilts"——
"No, it's not! " broke in Alf, with a rippling laugh; "it's a very good dress-material; silk one way, and wool the other; and it's mostly black, or maroon, or"——he stopped with a gasp. "Why don't you sit down?" he continued, in an altered tone. "And that reminds me, my day's work's not done yet."
He cleared the table, and placed upon it his half-dissected turkey, in a milk-dish. I had the conversation to myself till he finished his work and took the turkey outside to hang it on the meat-pole. This was a sapling of fifteen or twenty feet high, with a fork at the top, through which ran a piece of clothes-line. I followed him to the door, discoursing on literature, whilst he attached one end of the clothes-line to the turkey's legs, hauled it up to the fork, and hitched the fall of the rope to the pole. But just as the turkey reached its place, he had dropped his head with a movement of pain; and, after securing the rope, he groped his way into the hut, holding his hand over his right eye.
"Bit of bark, or something, dropped nght into my eye," he muttered.
"It does n't suit me to have anything wrong with the one I have left."
By the bright lamp-light, I soon relieved him of what proved to be a small ant; then he went out to the washing-bench, and I heard the dabbling of water.
"I got a grass-seed in my eye the New Year's Day before last," he remarked, in a sort of sullen self-commiseration, after we had sat in silence for a minute. "I could n't see to catch a horse; and it took me about six hours to grope my way along the fences to Dick Templeton's hut. I thought I'd have gone mad."
"Ah!" said I sympathetically, "that reminds me of an incident that came under my own notice on the very day you speak of. I'll tell you how it happened." By this time, Alf had lit a meek and lowly meerschaum, whilst a large grey cat had jumped on his knees, and settled itself for repose. "You asked me awhile ago whether I knew anyone of your name in this part of the country. I forgot at the moment that one of my most profitable studies is a namesake of yours— Warrigal Alf, a carrier on these roads."
"What's his other name?" asked the boundary man, in a suppressed voice.
"Morris."