ack's innate love of even the semblance of
overreaching, he might have discerned that his gain in this transaction
was hardly worth the pains.

'Wal, Robert, you ha' poured off the molasses into the kettles; an' now
fur the clarifyin'. I knowed as how ye had nothen' fit--milk, nor calf's
blood, nor eggs, nor nothen'--so I brought up the eggs, an' when we're
settlin' shares they kin be considered.'

'The old sharper!' muttered Arthur.

'I'm afeerd like they're beat up already,' said Mr. Bunting, picking
them gingerly out of his pockets, 'though I made Ged drive a purpose.
But that near ox has a trick of stickin' over stumps, an' I had obliged
to cut a handspike to him. I declar' if they ain't all whole arter all,
'cept one.' He smashed them into a wooden bowl half full of molasses,
and beat them up with a chip, then emptied the contents into the kettles,
stirring well. Hung over a slow fire, from a pole resting on two notched
posts, the slight simmering sound soon began; and on the top of the
heated fluid gathered a scum, which Zack removed. After some repetitions
of this skimming, and when the molasses looked bright and clear, Mr.
Bunting asked for a bit of fat bacon.

'Which can be considered when we're dividing shares,' said Arthur,
handing it to him a few minutes afterwards. A glance was Zack's reply,
as he strung the bacon on a cord, and hung it below the rim, within two
inches of the boiling surface.

'Indeed,' quoth Robert, looking on at the operation of this expedient
for preventing the spilling over of the molasses, 'I wonder some cleaner
mode of keeping the boiling within bounds has not been invented.'

'The Scotchman Davidson cools with a run of cold sap, out of a little
spout an' a keg; but them notions don't suit me nohow; the bit o' bacon
fixes it jest as right. By the way, did you hear that his farm is took?
By a Britisher gentleman--I'm told an officer, too; I guess he'll want
to back out o' the bush faster than he got in, ef he's like the most
of 'em. I know'd some o' the sort, an' they never did a cent's worth o'
good, hardly, though they was above bein' spoke to. 'Tain't a location
for soft hands an' handsome clothes, I guess; an' I declar ef I don't
think I ever saw gentlemen Britishers git along so remarkably smart as
yerselves: but ye hain't been above work, that's a fact.'

The Wynns were glad enough of the prospect of a new neighbour of the
educated class; for, more than once or twice, the