"How are you getting on in the art?" asked his father, smiling.
"Oh, slowly. My command of language doesn't seem to be sufficient, for so far the team looks on me with mild scorn." Jim grinned. "It's nervous work for Joe, too. I got him with the tail of the whip yesterday, when I'd every intention of correcting old Ranger! However, I plod on, and Joe keeps well out of the way now. He yells instructions at me from some way back in the landscape!"
"Prudent man, Burton," laughed his father. "A good tutor, too. I don't know that I ever saw a man handle bullocks better. Most people don't credit bullocks with souls, but I think Joe gets nearer to finding that attribute in his beasts than the average driver, and with less expenditure of energy and eloquence! He's like the man we were reading about, North:
"As to a team, over gully and hill,
He can travel with twelve on the breadth of a quill!"
"Oh, COULD he?" asked Jim, with much interest. "Well, the width of the paddock doesn't seem more than enough for me, so far. We wobble magnificently, the team and I! However, I keep hoping! I'd better be going. Sure you don't want me, Dad?"
"Not just now, old chap."
"Well, I'll be back before long." He smiled at his father and Norah, swinging out over the window ledge, and whistling cheerily until his long legs had carried him out of sight.
"He'll be a good man on the place, Norah."
"Why, of course," said Norah, a little surprised that statement should be made of so evident a fact. "Murty says he's 'takin' howld wid' both hands, an' 'tis the ould man over agin,' though it's like Murty's cheek to call you that. You won't be able to let him go away, I believe, Dad."
"I don't see myself sparing him to any other place now," said Mr. Linton. "Nor the head nurse either!"