“One day, Stranger, I was a joggin’ along into Windsor on Old Clay, on a sort of butter and eggs’ gait (for a fast walk on a journey tires a horse considerable), and who should I see a settin’ straddle legs “on the fence, but Squire Gabriel Soogit, with his coat off, a holdin’ of a hoe in one hand, and his hat in t’other, and a blowin’ like a porpus proper tired.
“‘Why, Squire Gabe,’ sais I, ‘what is the matter of you? you look as if you couldn’t help yourself; who is dead and what is to pay now, eh?’
“‘Fairly beat out,’ said he, ‘I am shockin’ tired. I’ve been hard at work all the mornin’; a body has to stir about considerable smart in this country, to make a livin’, I tell you.’
“I looked over the fence, and I seed he had hoed jist ten hills of potatoes, and that’s all. Fact I assure you.
“Sais he, ‘Mr. Slick, tell you what, of all the work I ever did in my life I like hoein’ potatoes the best, and I’d rather die than do that, it makes my back ache so.”
“‘Good airth” and seas,’ sais I to myself, ‘what a parfect pictur of a lazy man that is! How far is it to Windsor?’
“‘Three miles,’ sais he. I took out my pocket-book purtendin’ to write down the distance, but I booked his sayin’ in my way-bill.
“Yes, that is a Blue-nose; is it any wonder, Stranger, he is small potatoes and few in a hill?”