So Joel got off from the lowest step and followed the old man as he stumped off over the patchy grass, and the remains of a once good vegetable garden, where everything straggled off in its own sweet will, trying to hide behind its neighbors as if ashamed to be seen in Old Man Peters’s domain.
At last, behind the big barn, many of whose shingles seemed about to part acquaintance with their fellows, while the big door, and the shed tacked on to the rear partook of the general decay, the old man paused and pointed with his stick. “That’s your work, Joel, or whatever your name is, and the sooner you set at it, the better it will be.”
Joel stared on all sides and burst out, “I don’t see any work.”
Old Man Peters broke into a laugh that was more of a cackle than anything else, and that showed all his gums, for most of his teeth were gone long ago.
“Ha, ha! It’s there all the same. You’re to clean out th’ pig-pen.”
Now, the pig-pen at old Mr. Peters’s place hadn’t been cleaned out for so long that no one could remember the exact time, and it wouldn’t have been done now, only for the reason that the owner had at last made up his mind that if the big barn were not strengthened by some good work being put out on it, it would result in a great loss to him, for it was sagging dreadfully in that corner, and, beside, when the work of putting in new timbers was being accomplished, then was the time, if ever, to put on an ell, and increase its size. But, first of all, the pig-pen must be cleaned out; and, to do this, a small boy, who needn’t be paid very much, was the best sort of a person to set to work on it.
“Get down, Joel, and go at it,” said Old Man Peters, now in a very good humor indeed. “I’ve taken the pigs to t’other shed, so you can set to work at once.”
“I shan’t,” said Joel, wrathfully, and the color flying all over his cheek, “do it ever; not a single thing.”
“You won’t?” cried the old man, in a passion, and he raised his stick. But as Joel looked at him without even so much as a glance from his black eyes at the stick, he thought better of it, and his hand carrying it, dropped to his side. “You engaged to come and do my work,” he snarled.
“I didn’t,” said Joel, stoutly, “say I’d come and do your pig-pen; so there, now.”