Ro, dropping
easily into the broken English of our masquerade, as we walked into the
barn, where Miller, two of his older boys, and a couple of hired men
were at work, grinding scythes and preparing for the approaching
hay-harvest. "It might be warm day, dis fine mornin'."

"Good day, good day," cried Miller, hastily, and glancing his eye a
little curiously at our equipments. "What have you got in your
box--essences?"

"Nein; vatches and drinkets;" setting down the box and opening it at
once, for the inspection of all present. "Von't you burchase a goot
vatch, dis bleasant mornin'?"

"Be they ra-al gold?" asked Miller, a little doubtingly. "And all them
chains and rings, be they gold too?"

"Not true golt; nein, nein, I might not say dat. But goot enough golt
for blain folks, like you and me."

"Them things would never do for the grand quality over at the big
house!" cried one of the labourers who was unknown to me, but whose name
I soon ascertained was Joshua Brigham, and who spoke with a sort of
malicious sneer that at once betrayed _he_ was no friend. "You mean 'em
for poor folks, I s'pose?"

"I means dem for any bodies dat will pay deir money for 'em," answered
my uncle. "Vould you like a vatch?"

"That would I; and a farm, too, if I could get 'em cheap," answered
Brigham, with a sneer he did not attempt to conceal. "How do you sell
farms to-day?"

"I haf got no farms; I sells drinkets and vatches, but I doesn't sell
farms. Vhat I haf got I vill sell, but I cannot sells vhat I haf not
got."

"Oh! you'll get all you want if you'll stay long enough in this country!
This is a free land, and just the place for a poor man; or it will be,
as soon as we get all the lords and aristocrats out of it."

This was the first time I had ever heard this political blarney with my
own ears, though I had understood it was often used by those who wish to
give to their own particular envy and covetousness a grand and sounding
air.

"Vell, I haf heards dat in America dere might not be any noples ant
aristocrats," put in my uncle, with an appearance of beautiful
simplicity; "and dat dere ist not ein graaf in der whole coontry."

"Oh! there's all sorts of folks here, just as they are to be found
elsewhere," cried Miller, seating himself coolly on the end of the
grindstone-frame, to open and look into the mysteries of one of the
watches. "Now, Josh Brigham, here, calls all that's above him in the
world aristocrats, but he d