all over. Addison looked at "Doad" and she
looked at Ellen and me. Halse whistled.

"Why, what did you say, or do, that makes you look so queer!" cried
Gram, with uneasiness. "I hope you behaved well to him. Did anything
happen?"

"Oh, no, nothing much," said Ellen, laughing nervously. "Only he got the
'Jonah' pie and--and--we've had the Vice-President of the United States
under the table to put our feet on!"

Gram turned very red and was much disturbed. She wanted to have a letter
written that night, and try to apologize for us. But the Old Squire only
laughed. "I have known Mr. Hamlin ever since he was a boy," said he. "He
enjoyed that pie as well as any of them; no apology is needed."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE THRASHERS COME

Truth to say, farm work is never done, particularly on a New England
farm where a little of everything has to be undertaken and all kinds of
crops are raised, and where sheep, cattle, calves, colts, horses and
poultry have to be tended and provided with winter food, indoors. A
thrifty farmer has always a score of small jobs awaiting his hands.

There were now brakes to cut and dry for "bedding" at the barn, bushes
and briars to clear up along the fences and walls, and stone-heaps to
draw off, preparatory to "breaking up" several acres more of greensward.
The Old Squire's custom was to break up three or four acres, every
August, so that the turf would rot during the autumn. Potatoes were then
usually planted on it the ensuing spring, to be followed the next year
by corn and the next by wheat, or some other grain, when it was again
seeded down in grass.

About this time, too, the beans had to be pulled and stacked; and there
were always early apples to be gathered, for sale at the village stores.
Sometimes, too, the corn would be ripe enough to cut up and shock by the
5th or 6th of September; and immediately after came potato-digging,
always a heavy, dirty piece of farm work.

Not far from this time, "the thrashers" would make their appearance,
with "horse-power," "beater" and "separator," which were set up in the
west barn floor. These dusty itinerants usually remained with us for two
days and threshed the grain on shares: one bushel for every ten of
wheat, rye and barley and one for every twelve of oats. There were
always two of them; and for five or six years the same pair came to our
barn every fall: a sturdy old man, named Dennett, and his son-in-law,
Amos Moss. Dennett, himself