"You'll go if I say so!"
"No, I won't!" and Nat's eyes flashed fire. "I'm going to support myself, and all I ask is to be let alone."
"Oh, leave him stay, Abner," broke in Mrs. Balberry. "You don't want him, now you have Fred."
The farmer was on the point of saying that Nat as a worker was worth two Freds, but he thought it best to keep silent on that point.
"I'd like to make certain you are stopping with decent folks," said he, after another pause.
"And you won't bother me if I can prove that?" cried our hero, eagerly.
"I guess so, Nat. But you mustn't come down on me fer board an' clothes, later on."
"I won't."
The matter was talked over for a few minutes longer, and in the end Nat led the way to his boarding house and introduced his uncle and Mrs. Balberry to Mrs. Talcott. The surroundings rather pleased Abner Balberry, and he ended by arranging to stay with Mrs. Talcott for several days.
"It's better'n them hotels," said the farmer. "It's more like hum, ain't it, Lucy?"