He was busily engaged when Mrs. Ellison looked out at the kitchen door.
"Why," she said, in surprise, "I didn't know we had a new hand. Oh, I see, you're one of the boys' friends."
Harvey explained.
"Well, I call that good of you," exclaimed Mrs. Ellison, her pleasant, motherly face beaming. "Let the boys go after it's done? Why, of course. They can both go. Benny will help me through the week, all right, won't you, Benny?"
The youth thus addressed, who had just put in an appearance, his gun over his shoulder, assented, though not with much heartiness. He scowled at Harvey, and made no offer to be friendly.
"I suppose you want to go on the pond, too," said Mrs. Ellison, sympathetically.
Benny Ellison glanced sullenly at Harvey. "Not with those city chaps," he replied.
The "city chaps," sneeringly referred to by Benny Ellison, proved themselves good workmen, however. Unused to farm labour, as they were, their muscles were, however, far from being soft and easily tired. Tom and Bob, who excelled at athletics, surprised Jim Ellison with the amount of hay they could stack up into cocks, or, again, the amount they could spread and scatter; and they were tireless in following him through all the broad field. Henry Burns and Little Tim were of the wiry sort that never seemed to weary; while Harvey made the pile of split wood grow in a way that made Mrs. Ellison's eyes stick out.
Then, at noon, when the big farm dinner-bell rang, there was a great table spread for them in the long dining-room, fairly creaking with an array of good things to eat; with plenty of rich milk and doughnuts and home-made gingerbread to finish up with. Little Tim's thin face seemed to be almost bulging when he had done; and he ate his sixth doughnut in gallant style.
He was nearly wild with delight, too, late that afternoon, when he got permission to fish the famous Ellison trout pool; and he came back in time for supper with a fine string of the fish, brilliantly spotted fellows, which Mrs. Ellison fried to a crisp for the crew of boy farmers when their day's work was over.