But he thought his hour had come: he was alone in the house, and there was no neighbor within call.
Eph took out a roll of bills, counted out eighty dollars, laid the money on the table, and said, quietly:
"Give me a receipt on account."
When it was written he walked out, leaving Eliphalet stupefied.
Joshua Carr was at work, one June afternoon, by the road-side, in front of his low cottage, by an enormous pile of poles, which he was shaving down for barrel-hoops, when Eph appeared.
"Hard at it, Joshua!" he said.
"Yes, yes!" said Joshua, looking up through his steel-bowed spectacles. "Hev to work hard to make a livin'—though I don't know's I ought to call it hard, neither; and yet it is rather hard, too; but then, on t'other hand, 'taint so hard as a good many other things—though there is a good many jobs that's easier. That's so! That's so!
"'Must we be kerried to the skies
On feathery beds of ease?'
Though I don' know's I oughter quote a hymn on such a matter; but then—I don' know's there's any partic'lar harm in't, neither."