I liked, and in the soft, spring evening we set off down the road. “But,” I was saying, “$45 a month for skilled labour seems to me a measly wage. I’m ashamed to offer it. Why, college instructors get as much as that! I shall offer Mike $50.”
“Do yer want ter spile all the hired help in Bentford?” cried Bert.
“No,” said I, “but Mike gets $50, and perhaps a raise if he makes good. I believe in the hire being worth the labourer. That’s flat.”
“Wal, then, ez to carpenters,” Bert switched, seeing that I could not be budged; “thar’s good carpenters, an’ bad carpenters, an’ Hard Cider Howard. Hard Cider’s fergotten more abeout carpent’rin’ then most o’ the rest ever knoo, and he ain’t fergot much, neither. But he ain’t handsome, and he looks upon the apple juice when it’s yaller. Maybe yer don’t mind looks, an’ I kin keep Hard Cider sober while he’s on your job. He’ll treat yer fair, an’ see thet the plumbers do, an’ fix all them rotten sills ez good ez noo.”
“What’s that?” said I. “Rotten sills?”
“Sure,” Bert answered. “Mean to tell me yer didn’t know thet? Yer can’t pack all yer sills with leaves fer a hundred years, an’ not take ’em away summers half the time, an’ not rot yer sills. I’d say, treat ’em with cement like they do trees neow.”
I began to have visions of my remaining $24,000 melting away in sills.
“I suppose the barn is rotten, too?” said I, faintly, as an interrogation.
We were then passing the barn. Bert stepped in–the door wasn’t locked–lit a lantern, came out with it, and led me around to one side. He held the lantern against one of the timbers which formed the foundation frame. It was a foot in diameter, and made of hand-hewn oak! Though it had never been guilty of paint, it looked as solid as a rock.
“Barn needs some patchin’ and floorin’ and a few shingles,” said Bert, “but it ain’t doo to fall deown jest yit!”