common to the same class and region--to indicate the spouse of the
wayfarer, and mother of the two youths, was busied about the fire,
boiling a pot of coffee, and preparing the family repast for the night.
A somewhat late hour for supper and such employment, thought our
wanderer; but the difficulty soon explained itself in the condition of
their wagon, and the conversation which ensued among the travellers.
There was yet another personage in the assembly, who must be left to
introduce himself to the reader.

The _force_ of the traveller--for such is the term by which the number
of his slaves are understood--was small, consisting of some six
_workers_, and three or four little negro children asleep under the
wagon. The workers were occupied at a little distance, in replacing
boxes, beds, and some household trumpery, which had been taken out of
the wagon, to enable them to effect its release from the slough in which
it had cast one of its wheels, and broken its axle, and the restoration
of which had made their supper so late in the night. The heavier
difficulties of their labor had been got over, and with limbs warmed and
chafed by the extra exercise they had undergone, the whites had thrown
themselves under a tree, at a little distance from the fire at which the
supper was in preparation, while a few pine torches, thrown together,
gave them sufficient light to read and remark the several countenances
of their group.

"Well, by dogs, we've had a tough 'bout of it, boys; and, hark'ye,
strannger, gi' us your hand. I don't know what we should have done
without you, for I never seed man handle a little poleaxe as you did
that same affair of your'n. You must have spent, I reckon, a pretty
smart time at the use of it, now, didn't ye?"

To this speech of the farmer, a ready reply was given by the stranger,
in the identical voice and language of our old acquaintance, the pedler,
Jared Bunce, of whom, and of whose stock in trade, the reader will
probably have some recollection.

"Well, now, I guess, friend, you an't far wide of your reckoning. I've
been a matter of some fifteen or twenty years knocking about, off and
on, in one way or another, with this same instrument, and pretty's the
service now, I tell ye, that it's done me in that bit of time."

"No doubt, no doubt; but what's your trade, if I may be so bold, that
made you larn the use of it so nicely?"

"Oh, what--my trade? Why, to say the truth, I never was brought up