throw her.'

'We wasn't throwin' nothin'. We was cuttin' out they soft alders, an'
haulin' 'em up the bank 'fore they could back the waters on the wheat.
Jim didn't say much, 'less it was that he'd had a postcard from Mary's
Lunnon father, night before, sayin' he was comin' down that mornin'.
Jim, he'd sweated all night, an' he didn't reckon hisself equal to the
talkin' an' the swearin' an' the cryin', an' his mother blamin' him
afterwards on the slate. "It spiled my day to think of it," he ses, when
we was eatin' our pieces. "So I've fair cried dunghill an' run.
Mother'll have to tackle him by herself. I lay _she_ won't give him no
hush-money," he ses. "I lay he'll be surprised by the time he's done
with _her_," he ses. An' that was e'en a'most all the talk we had
concernin' it. But he's no hunger with the toppin' axe.

'The brook she'd crep' up an' up on us, an' she kep' creepin' upon us
till we was workin' knee-deep in the shallers, cuttin' an' pookin' an'
pullin' what we could get to o' the rubbish. There was a middlin' lot
comin' down-stream, too--cattle-bars, an' hop-poles and odds-ends bats,
all poltin' down together; but they rooshed round the elber good shape
by the time we'd backed out they drowned trees. Come four o'clock we
reckoned we'd done a proper day's work, an' she'd take no harm if we
left her. We couldn't puddle about there in the dark an' wet to no more
advantage. Jim he was pourin' the water out of his boots--no, I was
doin' that. Jim was kneelin' to unlace his'n. "Damn it all, Jesse," he
ses, standin' up; "the flood must be over my doorsteps at home, for here
comes my old white-top bee-skep!"'

'Yes. I allus heard he paints his bee-skeps,' Jabez put in. 'I dunno
paint don't tarrify bees more'n it keeps em' dry.'