onsettlin' to inspeck folks' motives too turrible close."

"Riding a log is no more to Steve than riding a horse, so he
says," interposed Rose, to change the subject; "but I tell him
that a horse doesn't revolve under you, and go sideways at the
same time that it is going forwards."

"Log-ridin' ain't no trick at all to a man of sperit," said Mr.
Wiley. "There's a few places in the Kennebec where the water's
too shaller to let the logs float, so we used to build a flume,
an' the logs would whiz down like arrers shot from a bow. The
boys used to collect by the side o' that there flume to see me
ride a log down, an' I've watched 'em drop in a dead faint when I
spun by the crowd; but land! you can't drownd some folks, not
without you tie nail-kegs to their head an' feet an' drop 'em in
the falls; I 've rid logs down the b'ilin'est rapids o' the
Kennebec an' never lost my head. I remember well the year o' the
gre't freshet, I rid a log from"--

"There, there, father, that'll do," said Mrs. Wiley, decisively.
"I'll put the cream in the churn, an' you jest work off some o'
your steam by bringin' the butter for us afore you start for the
bridge. It don't do no good to brag afore your own womenfolks;
work goes consid'able better'n stories at every place 'cept the
loafers' bench at the tavern."

And the baffled raconteur, who had never done a piece of work
cheerfully in his life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed,
where, before long, one could hear him moving the dasher up and
down sedately to his favorite "churning tune" of--