'What he said to you, I reckon, Jesse.'
'Then, you don't need me to say it over again, Jabez.'
'Well, let be how 'twill, what was he gettin' after when he said what he said to me?' Jabez insisted.
'I dunno; unless you tell me what manner o' words he said to you.'
Jabez drew back from the hedge--all hedges are nests of treachery and eavesdropping--and moved to an open cattle-lodge in the centre of the field.
'No need to go ferretin' around,' said Jesse. 'None can't see us here 'fore we see them.'
'What was Jim Wickenden gettin' at when I said he'd set his stack too near anigh the brook?' Jabez dropped his voice. 'He was in his mind.'
'He ain't never been out of it yet to my knowledge,' Jesse drawled, and uncorked his tea-bottle.
'But then Jim says: "I ain't goin' to shift my stack a yard," he says. "The Brook's been good friends to me, and if she be minded," he says, "to take a snatch at my hay, I ain't settin' out to withstand her." That's what Jim Wickenden says to me last--last June-end 'twas,' said Jabez.
'Nor he hasn't shifted his stack, neither,' Jesse replied. 'An' if there's more rain, the brook she'll shift it for him.'