Suddenly, when the sun was almost down, Sam remembered that a house was
being built several squares away. Carpenters always left many scraps
behind them, which village custom allowed anyone to pick up. The
cobbler devoutly thanked heaven for the thought, closed the shop, and
hurried away to the new building. The men were still at work, and there
was a great deal of waste lying about.

"May I have some of these leavin's?" asked Sam of the master builder.

The man looked down from the scaffolding on which he stood, recognized
the questioner, turned again to his work, and at last answered, with a
scowl,--

"Yes, I suppose so. It would be all the same, I guess, if I didn't say
so. You'd come after dark and help yourself."

Sam pocketed the insult, though the weight of it was heavy. So was that
of the bits of board he gathered; but he knew that such thin wood
burned rapidly, so he took a load that made him stagger. As he entered
the yard behind his house, he saw, through the dusk which was beginning
to gather, a man rapidly tossing cord-wood from a wagon to a large pile
which already lay on the ground.

"My friend," gasped Sam, dropping his own load and panting from his
exertion, "I guess--you've made a--mistake. I ain't ordered a load of
wood from nobody. Guess you've come to the wrong house."

"Guess not," replied the man, who was the farmer that had freed his
mind at the railway station during the afternoon.