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."

Eph sat down on a pile of shavings and chewed a sliver; and the old man
kept on at his work.

"Hoop-poles goin' up and hoops goin' down," he continued. "Cur'us, ain't
it? But then, I don' know as 'tis; woods all bein' cut off--poles
gittin' scurcer; hoops bein' shoved in from Down East. That don' seem
just right, now, does it--but then, other folks must make a livin', too.
Still, I should think they might take up suthin' else; and yet, they
might say that about me. Understand, I don' mean to say that they
actually do say so; I don' want to run down any man unless I know--"