"He seems to be a mighty light eater," Gran'dad mused. "Wouldn't drink no buttermilk tonight: said hit wuz too fillin'."
"I bet he's a holdin' in," said Dock.
"He tuck holt o' work well," said Mr. Doggett. "Got a good sleight at suckerin', although I had to holp him some in his row a wormin'—him not bein' broke into the work—so we'd come out ever' row together. He's sorter green about hit. Told me he wisht I'd git him a pair o' gloves to keep the gum offen his hands. I told him I jest couldn't possible do hit,—he'd tear the leaves up in gloves."
"He's green about a heap o' work," put in Dock: "he told me he'd been all over the Nuniter States, and he'd never yit stuck job that wuz heftier, ner killiner, ner back-breakin'er, ner disagreeabler than wormin' and suckerin' terbaccer! I ast him wouldn't he holp me milk,—hit wuzn't no mean job, and he said he didn't know how to milk! I told him I thought ever'body knowed how to milk, and he said he reckon they ort ter ef they don't, and he'd git me to learn him when he wuzn't so wore out."
"Somethin's been in the milk jairs at the spreng," remarked Mrs. Doggett, regretfully. "When I went to strain the milk a while ago, I found two jairs o' fraish milk with ever' bit the cream skimmed off: wuzn't no cream on 'em—fraish mornin's milk—and the milk on one jair wuz half down, like hit had been poured out into somethin'."
A suspicion as to the receptacle into which the milk and cream had been emptied, entered Mr. Doggett's mind, but he was discreet.
"Maybe some Mr. Archie Evans' fox hounds done hit, Ann," he suggested, maligning the innocent, "I heerd 'em out this evenin' about four o'clock."
"But the leds wuz all on," objected Mrs. Doggett.
"Well, maybe some the hands seed 'em off, and laid 'em back," persuaded Mr. Doggett,—"Bunch er Knox when they went home."
"Somethin's goin' with my aigs too," Mrs. Doggett further complained; "not nary aig did I git at the barn this evenin', and been a gittin' nineteen ever' day!"