we shot over those fields for a hundred years before the
first damned Gay ever came here."

"So we have--so we have, but it seems we ain't a-goin' to do so any
longer if Mr. Jonathan can find a way to prevent it. Archie was down
here jest a minute or two arter you went by this mornin', an' he was
swearin' like thunder, with a busted lip an' a black eye."

A smarting sensation passed over Abel, as though the change to the warm
room after the cold outside were stinging his flesh.

"Well, I wish I had been there," he retorted, "somebody else would have
been knocked down and sat on if that had happened."

"Ah, so I said--so I said," chuckled old Adam. "Thar ain't many men with
sech a hearty stomach for trouble, I was jest sayin' to Solomon."

Bending over the fire, he lifted a live ember between two small sticks,
and placing it in the callous palm of his hand, blew softly on it an
instant before he lighted his pipe.

"What goes against my way of thinkin'," remarked Betsey Bottom, wiping
a glass of cider on her checked apron before she handed it to Abel, "is
that so peaceable lookin' a gentleman as Mr. Jonathan should begin to
start a fuss jest as soon as he lands in the midst of us. Them plump,
soft-eyed males is generally inclined to mildness whether they be men or
cattle."

"'Taint nothin' on earth but those foreign whims he's brought back an'
is tryin' to set workin' down here," said Solomon Hatch. "If we don't
get our backs up agin 'em in time, we'll find presently we don't even
dare to walk straight along the turnpike when we see him a comin'. A few
birds, indeed!--did anybody ever hear tell of sech doin's? 'Warn't them
birds in the air?' I ax, 'an' don't the air belong to Archie the same as
to him?'"

"It's because he's rich an' we're po', that he's got a right to lay
claim to it," muttered William Ming, a weakly obstinate person, to whose
character a glass of cider contributed the only strength.

"You'd better hold yo' tongue, suh," retorted his wife, "it ain't yo'
air anyway, is it?"

"I reckon it's as much mine as it's Mr. Jonathan's," rejoined William,
who, having taken a double portion, had waxed argumentative. "An' what
I reason is that birds as is in the air ain't anybody's except the man's
that can bring 'em down with a gun."

"That's mo' than you could do," replied his wife, "an' be that whether
or no, it's time you were thinkin' about beddin' the grey mule, an' she
ain't in the air, anyhow. If