is was the man from Tennessee,
Matt Henderson, dubbed "Dixie" for short. He was a giant fellow,--a
"great gormin' critter," Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he
had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have
been thought a man of splendid presence.

He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section
of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass
of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes,
and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves
through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these that gave him what the
boys called a "kind of a downcasted look." The man from Tennessee had
something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was
a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart.

"I'm goin' to doze a spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat
over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm
goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you
think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my
mind I can't git a wink o' sleep."

This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of
laughter.

"It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt
Lyddy," said David Milliken.

"You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it
did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack
o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth,
the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n'
worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!"

"You're right, Jabe." (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting
a _D_ in the bark. He was always cutting _D_'s these days.) "This ellum
can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. My brother that
lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, don't
throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall o'
the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'assiduous trees,' he called
'em."

"_Assidyus_ trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're about
it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? _Assidyus!_ What does
it mean, anyhow?"

"Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot
it."

"Assidyus--assidyus--it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to me."

"Assiduous means 'busy,'" said the man from Tennessee, who had sud