could use another man in the
stable at the Old Home House. If you want the job you can have it. ONLY,
you'll have to work, and work hard."

Well, sir, would you believe it?--his face fell like a cook-book cake.
That kind of chance wa'n't what he was looking for. He shuffled and
hitched around, and finally he says: "I'll--Ill consider your offer," he
says.

That was too many for me. "Well, I'll be yardarmed!" says I, and went
off and left him "considering." I don't know what his considerations
amounted to. All I know is that next day they took him to the poorhouse.

And from now on this yarn has got to be more or less hearsay. I'll have
to put this and that together, like the woman that made the mince meat.
Some of the facts I got from a cousin of Deborah Badger's, some of them
I wormed out of Asaph himself one time when he'd had a jug come down
from the city and was feeling toler'ble philanthropic and conversationy.
But I guess they're straight enough.

Seems that, while I was down notifying Blueworthy, Cap'n Poundberry
had gone over to the poorhouse to tell the Widow Badger about her new
boarder. The widow was glad to hear the news.

"He'll be somebody to talk to, at any rate," says she. "Poor old Betsy
Mullen ain't exactly what you'd call company for a sociable body. But
I'll mind what you say, Cap'n Benijah. It takes more than a slick tongue
to come it over me. I'll make that lazy man work or know the reason
why."

So when Asaph arrived--per truck wagon--at three o'clock the next
afternoon, Mrs. Badger was ready for him. She didn't wait to shake hands
or say: "Glad to see you." No, sir! The minute he landed she sent him
out by the barn with orders to chop a couple of cords of oak slabs that
was piled there. He groaned and commenced to develop lumbago symptoms,
but she cured 'em in a hurry by remarking that her doctor's book said
vig'rous exercise was the best physic, for that kind of disease, and
so he must chop hard. She waited till she heard the ax "chunk" once or
twice, and then she went into the house, figgering that she'd gained the
first lap, anyhow.

But in an hour or so it come over her all of a sudden that 'twas awful
quiet out by the woodpile. She hurried to the back door, and there was
Ase, setting on the ground in the shade, his eyes shut and his back
against the chopping block, and one poor lonesome slab in front of him
with a couple of splinters knocked off it. That was his afternoon's
work.