living. That Didenhover is ruining me, brother Joshua."

"He's feathering his own nest, I reckon."

"You may swear to that. There wa'n't as many bushels of grain,
by one fourth, when they were threshed out last year, as I had
calculated there would be in the field. I don't know what on
earth he could have done with it. I suppose it'll be the same
thing over this year."

"May be he has served you as Deacon Travis was served by one
of his help last season — the rascal bored holes in the
granary floor and let out the corn so, and Travis couldn't
contrive how his grain went till the floor was empty next
spring, and then he see how it was."

"Ha! — did he catch the fellow?"

"Not he — he had made tracks before that. A word in your ear —
I wouldn't let Didenhover see much of his salary till you know
how he will come out at the end."

"He has got it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous
twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several
little sums on one pretence and another, — he had a brother in
New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he
wanted to get out of pawn, and so on, — and I let him have it!
and then there was one of those fatting steers that he
proposed to me to let him have on account, and I thought it
was as good a way of paying him as any; and that made up