tay's long's yeh like. I like yeh fine."

"All right," said Cameron. "Wait till I get my bag, but I ought to tell
you I have had no experience."

"No experience, eh!" Haley pondered. "Well, we'll give it to you, and
anyway you saved me some experience to-day and you come home with me."

When he returned he found Haley sitting on the bottom of the wagon
rapidly sinking into slumber. The effects of the bucket were passing
off.

"What about the groceries, Tim?" enquired Cameron.

"We've got to git 'em," said Tim, "or we'll catch it sure."

Leaving Cameron to wonder what it might be that they were sure to catch,
Tim extracted from his father's pocket the paper on which were listed
the groceries to be purchased, and the roll of bills, and handed both to
Cameron.

"You best git 'em," he said, and, mounting to the high spring seat,
turned the team out of the yard. The groceries secured with Cameron's
help, they set off for home as the long June evening was darkening into
night.

"My! it's awful late," said Tim in a voice full of foreboding. "And
Perkins ain't no good at chores."

"How far is it to your home?" enquired Cameron.

"Nine miles out this road and three off to the east."

"And who's Perkins?"

"Perkins! Joe Perkins! He's our hired man. He's a terror to work at
plowin', cradlin', and bindin', but he ain't no good at chores. I bet
yeh he'll leave Mandy to do the milkin', ten cows, and some's awful
bad."

"And who's Mandy?" enquired Cameron.

"Mandy! She's my sister. She's an awful quick milker. She can beat Dad,
or Perkins, or any of 'em, but ten cows is a lot, and then there's the
pigs and the calves to feed, and the wood, too. I bet Perkins won't cut
a stick. He's good enough in the field," continued Tim, with an obvious
desire to do Perkins full justice, "but he ain't no good around the
house. He says he ain't hired to do women's chores, and Ma she won't ask
'im. She says if he don't do what he sees to be done she'd see 'im far
enough before she'd ask 'im." And so Timothy went on with a monologue
replete with information, his high thin voice rising clear above the
roar and rattle of the lumber wagon as it rumbled and jolted over the
rutty gravel road. Those who knew the boy would have been amazed at his
loquacity, but something in Cameron had won his confidence and opened
his heart. Hence his monologue, in which the qualities, good and bad, of
the members of the family, of their own hired man and o