"I'm not driving anybody, that I know of," answered Rose, with
heightened color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.

"Then, when he graduated from errants," went on the crafty old
man, who knew that when breakfast ceased, churning must begin,
"Steve used to get seventy-five cents a day helpin' clear up the
river--if you can call this here silv'ry streamlet a river.
He'd pick off a log here an' there an' send it afloat, an' dig
out them that hed got ketched in the rocks, and tidy up the banks
jest like spring house-cleanin'. If he'd hed any kind of a boss,
an' hed be'n trained on the Kennebec, he'd 'a' made a turrible
smart driver, Steve would."

"He'll be drownded, that's what'll become o' him," prophesied
Mrs. Wiley; "'specially if Rose encourages him in such silly
foolishness as ridin' logs from his house down to ourn, dark
nights."

"Seein' as how Steve built ye a nice pig pen last month, 'pears
to me you might have a good word for him now an' then, mother,"
remarked Old Kennebec, reaching for his second piece of pie.

"I wa'n't a mite deceived by that pig pen, no more'n I was by Jed
Towle's hen coop, nor Ivory Dunn's well-curb, nor Pitt Packard's
shed-steps. If you hed ever kep' up your buildin's yourself,
Rose's beaux wouldn't hev to do their courtin' with carpenters'
tools."

"It's the pigpen an' the hencoop you want to keep your eye on,
mother, not the motives of them as made 'em. It's turrible