“I'm goin' to doze a spell,” drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat over his eyes. “I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git a wink o' sleep.”
This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of laughter.
“It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt Lyddy,” said David Milliken.
“You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!”
“You're right, Jabe.” (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting a D in the bark. He was always cutting D's these days.) “This ellum can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. My brother that lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, don't throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall o' the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'assiduous trees,' he called 'em.”
“Assidyus trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're about it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? Assidyus! What does it mean, anyhow?”
“Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot it.”
“Assidyus—assidyus—it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to me.”
“Assiduous means 'busy,'” said the man from Tennessee, who had suddenly waked from a brown study, and dropped off into another as soon as he had given the definition.
“Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off now 'n we ever was. One tree's 'bout 's busy as another, as fur 's I can see.”