unwieldy bulk of the mistress of the house.

"Now, that's jest like yer Pa," Cameron heard her grumbling to her
daughter, "bringin' a man here jest at the busy season who don't know
nothin'. He's peckin' away at 'em blocks like a rooster peckin' grain."

"He's willin' enough, Ma," replied the girl, "and I guess he'll learn."

"Learn!" puffed Mrs. Haley contemptuously. "Did ye ever see an
old-country man learn to handle an axe or a scythe after he was growed
up? Jest look at 'im. Thank goodness! there's Tim."

"Here, Tim!" she called from the door, "best split some o' that wood
'fore breakfast."

Tim approached Cameron with a look of pity on his face.

"Let me have a try," he said. Cameron yielded him the axe. The boy set
on end the block at which Cameron had been laboring and, with a swift
glancing blow of the axe, knocked off a slab.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Cameron admiringly, "how did you do that?"

For answer the boy struck again the same glancing blow, a slab started
and, at a second light blow, fell to the ground.

"I say!" exclaimed Cameron again, "I must learn that trick."

"Oh, that's easy!" said Tim, knocking the slabs off from the outside of
the block. "This heart's goin' to be tough, though; got a knot in it,"
and tough it proved, resisting all his blows.

"You're a tough sucker, now, ain't yeh?" said Tim, through his shut
teeth, addressing the block. "We'll try yeh this way." He laid the end
of the block upon a log and plied the axe with the full strength of
his slight body, but the block danced upon the log and resisted all his
blows.

"Say! you're a tough one now!" he said, pausing for breath.

"Let me try that," said Cameron, and, putting forth his strength, he
brought the axe down fairly upon the stick with such force that the
instrument shore clean through the knot and sank into the log below.

"Huh! that's a cracker," said Tim with ungrudging admiration. "All you
want is knack. I'll slab it off and you can do the knots," he added with
a grin.

As the result of this somewhat unequal division of labor, there lay in
half an hour a goodly pile of fire wood ready for the cooking. It caught
Haley's eye as he came in to breakfast.

"I say, Missus, that's a bigger pile than you've had for some time.
Guess my new man ain't so slow after all."

"Huh!" puffed his wife, waddling about with great agility, "it was Tim
that done it."

"Now, Ma, ye know well enough he helped Tim, and right smart to