Putting the fence up again in the hurry that Dad was in was the very
devil! He felled the saplings--and such saplings!--TREES many of them
were--while we, "all of a muck of sweat," dragged them into line. Dad
worked like a horse himself, and expected us to do the same. "Never mind
staring about you," he'd say, if he caught us looking at the sun to see if
it were coming dinner-time--"there's no time to lose if we want to get the
fence up and a crop in."

Dan worked nearly as hard as Dad until he dropped the butt-end of a heavy
sapling on his foot, which made him hop about on one leg and say that he
was sick and tired of the dashed fence. Then he argued with Dad, and
declared that it would be far better to put a wire-fence up at once,
and be done with it, instead of wasting time over a thing that would only
be burnt down again. "How long," he said, "will it take to get the posts?
Not a week," and he hit the ground disgustedly with a piece of stick he
had in his hand.

"Confound it!" Dad said, "have n't you got any sense, boy? What earthly
use would a wire-fence be without any wire in it?"

Then we knocked off and went to dinner.

No one appeared in any humour to talk at the table. Mother sat silently
at the end and poured out the tea while Dad, at the head, served the
pumpkin and divided what cold meat there was. Mother would n't have any
meat--one of us would have to go without if she had taken any.

I don't know if it was on account of Dan arguing with him, or if it was
because there was no bread for dinner, that Dad was in a bad temper;
anyway, he swore at Joe for coming to the table with dirty hands. Joe