"I do work," answered Harry.
"Not much; you look as fat and lazy as one of my fat hogs."
Mr. Nason ventured to suggest that Harry was a smart, active boy, willing to work, and that he more than paid his keeping by the labor he performed in the field, and the chores he did about the house—an interference which the squire silently rebuked, by turning up his nose at the keeper.
"I do all they want me to do," added the boy, whose tongue seemed to grow wonderfully glib under the gratuitous censure of the notable gentleman.
"Don't be saucy, Master West."
"Bless you, squire! Harry never spoke a saucy word in his life," interposed the friendly keeper.
"He should know his place, and learn how to treat his superiors. You give these boys too much meat, Mr. Nason. They can't bear it. Mush and molasses is the best thing in the world for them."
If any one had looked closely at Harry while the functionary was delivering himself of this speech, he might have seen his eye snap and his chest heave with indignation. He had evidently conquered his timidity, and, maugre his youth, was disposed to stand forth and say, "I, too, am a man." His head was erect, and he gazed unflinchingly into the eye of the squire.
"Boy," said the great man, who did not like to have a pauper boy look him in the eye without trembling—"boy, I have got a place for you, and the sooner you are sent to it, the better it will be for you and for the town."
"Where is it, sir?"