tastes; for even if he were hard on the boys in work hours, Raften
saw to it that when they did play they should have a good time. His
roughness and force made Yan afraid of him, and as it was Raften's
way to say nothing until his mind was fully made up, and then say it
"strong," Yan was left in doubt as to whether or not he was giving
satisfaction.




II

Sam


Sam Raften turned out to be more congenial than he looked. His slow,
drawling speech had given a wrong impression of stupidity, and, after
a formal showing of the house under Mr. Raften, a real investigation
was headed by Sam. "This yer's the paaar-le-r," said he, unlocking a
sort of dark cellar aboveground and groping to open what afterward
proved to be a dead, buried and almost forgotten window. In Sanger
settlement the farmhouse parlour is not a room; it is an institution.
It is kept closed all the week except when the minister calls, and
the one at Raften's was the pure type. Its furniture consisted of six
painted chairs (fifty cents each), two rockers ($1.49), one melodeon
(thirty-two bushels of wheat--the agent asked forty), a sideboard made
at home of the case the melodeon came in, one rag carpet woofed at
home and warped and woven in exchange for wool, one center-table
varnished (!) ($9.00 cash, $11.00 catalogue). On the center-table was
one tintype album, a Bible, and some large books for company use.