look of embarrassment, "but I don't never shirk a tough job ef it
hes t' be done."

Then he stepped forward, took off his faded hat, his brow wrinkling
deep, and said, in a drawling preacher tone that had no sound of
D'ri in it: "O God, tek care o' gran'ma. Help us t' go on careful,
an' when we 're riled, help us t' keep er mouths shet. O God, help
the ol' cart, an' the ex in pertic'lar. An' don't be noway hard on
us. Amen."





II

June was half over when we came to our new home in the town of
Madrid--then a home only for the foxes and the fowls of the air and
their wild kin of the forest. The road ran through a little valley
thick with timber and rock-bound on the north. There were four
families within a mile of us, all comfortably settled in small log
houses. For temporary use we built a rude bark shanty that had a
partition of blankets, living in this primitive manner until my
father and D'ri had felled the timber and built a log house. We
brought flour from Malone,--a dozen sacks or more,--and while they
were building, I had to supply my mother with fish and game and
berries for the table--a thing easy enough to do in that land of
plenty. When the logs were cut and hewn I went away, horseback, to
Canton for a jug of rum. I was all day and half the night going
and coming, and fording the Grasse took me stirrups under.