“Oh,” said she, “so should I, above all things; but I wouldn’t ask him for the world. He’ll do it for you, I know he will; for he says you are a man after his own heart. You study nature so; and I don’t know what all, he said of you.”
“Well, well,” sais I, “old trapper as he is, see if I don’t catch him. I know how to bait the trap; so he will walk right into it. And then, if he has anything to eat there, I’ll show him how to cook it woodsman fashion. I’ll teach him how to dress a salmon; roast, boil, or bake. How to make a bee-hunter’s mess; a new way to do his potatoes camp fashion; and how to dispense with kitchen-ranges, cabouses, or cooking-stoves. If I could only knock over some wild-ducks at the lake here, I’d show him a simple way of preparing them, that would make his mouth water, I know. Truth is, a man that lives in the country ought to know a little of everything a’most, and he can’t be comfortable if he don’t. But dear me, I must be a movin.”
So I made her a bow, and she made me one of her best courtseys. And I held out my hand to her, but she didn’t take it, though I see a smile playin’ over her face. The fact is, it is just as well she didn’t, for I intended to draw her—. Well, it ain’t no matter what I intended to do; and therefore it ain’t no use to confess what I didn’t realise.
“Truth is,” said I, lingering a bit, not to look disappointed, “a farmer ought to know what to raise, how to live, and where to save. If two things are equally good, and one costs money, and the other only a little trouble, the choice ain’t difficult, is it?”
“Mr Slick,” sais she, “are you a farmer?”
“I was bred and born on a farm, dear,” sais I, “and on one, too, where nothin’ was ever wasted, and no time ever lost; where there was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Where peace and plenty reigned; and where there was a shot in the locker for the minister, and another for the poor, and—”
“You don’t mean to say that you considered them game, did you?” said she, looking archly.
“Thank you,” sais I. “But now you are making game of me, Miss; that’s not a bad hit of yours though; and a shot for the bank, at the eend of the year. I know all about farm things, from raisin’ Indian corn down to managing a pea-hen; the most difficult thing to regulate next to a wife, I ever see.”
“Do you live on a farm now?”
“Yes, when I am to home,” sais I, “I have returned again to the old occupation and the old place; for, after all, what’s bred in the bone, you know, is hard to get out of the flesh, and home is home, however homely. The stones, and the trees, and the brooks, and the hills look like old friends—don’t you think so?”