After dinner, Mr. Doggett conducted his new man to the field.
"I won't be hard on you this evenin', Dunaway, your fust day o' wormin'," he avowed, as each man started his row: "I'll take a row and sorter holp you in your'n too, onct in a while."
Dunaway was quick and agile, and although the sweat poured into his eyes, and his back ached with the unaccustomed stooping to lift the leaves, he managed to do a fair amount of worm-killing.
Dock or Gran'dad was usually sent to the spring for fresh water for the toilers, but when about three o'clock, Dunaway offered to go, Mr. Doggett made no objection.
"The pore feller hain't seasoned yit," he conciliated Dock and Gran'dad, for thus favoring the stranger, "and hit hain't no more'n jest to give him a leetle breathin' spell."
That evening, seven men (Bunch Trisler and his brother boarded at their own home) very weary of eye, of back and of arm, soiled with dust, perspiration, and tobacco gum—filed in, and immediately after supper, five of them, including the worn and dejected Dunaway, climbed the steps to their bedroom. Gran'dad rested a while in the sitting-room, discussing Dunaway with his son and Mrs. Doggett, while Dock stretched himself flat on the floor.
To Mr. Doggett's enthusiastic congratulation of himself on the wisdom of his purchase, Gran'dad remarked:
"I dunno as I'd keer to own him: seems to me he'd be a slippery possession."
"Yes," broke in Mrs. Doggett, "about the time you git him clothed up fer winter, he'll light out and that'll be the last you'll hear o' him!"
"Why, Ann," Mr. Doggett obtruded, "I could excribe him over the tillephorm, and could git him anywhar. He wouldn't have no chanst a runnin'!"