"Don't you know I'm a sawyer myself?" said the deacon, chuckling over a familiar joke.
Ben laughed, feeling that it was his policy to encourage what feeble glimmering of wit the deacon might indulge in.
"That's your joke, father," said Nancy. "You'll have to get the wood sawed and split, and you might as well employ Ben."
"I thought you was in the factory, Benjamin," said the old man.
"So I was, but they cut down the number of hands some weeks ago, and I had to leave among others."
"How do you make a livin', then?" inquired the deacon bluntly.
"We've got along somehow," said Ben; "but if I don't get work soon, I don't know what we shall do."
"Nancy," said the deacon, "seems to me I can saw the wood myself. It will save money."
"No, you can't father," said Nancy decidedly. "You are too old for that kind of work, and you can afford to have it done."
"You are a sensible woman, even if you are homely," thought Ben, though for obvious reasons he did not say it.