Hoag closed his note-book, keeping the pencil between the leaves, and thrust it into his pocket. “I saw you comin' back from the graveyard yesterday, an' I decided I'd try to find regular work for you. I kin always depend on you gittin' a job done, an' that's sayin' a lot. You hain't got a lazy bone in your body, if I do say it, an' it will be the makin' of you in the long run. Now, my mill-race has washed in till the flow is gittin' sluggish an' thin. The bottom of it, for fully a quarter of a mile, has got to be shoveled out an' lowered to an even grade. It will take you a month at least, but it will be regular work. The dam's all right, so we don't have to bother with that. I want you to come over every day after breakfast, an' then go to my house for yore dinner. It will save you the walk home, an' you kin git in more time. How would you like the job at the old wages?” “I'm willin',” Paul answered, listlessly. “Well, pick you out a spade in the tool-house right now, an' go to the dam an' begin to work toward the mill. The mill's shut down, an' the race bed's just wet enough to make the shovelin' soft. Some o' the banks are purty steep an' you 'll have to throw purty high, but you are equal to it.” Paul went at once to the mill-dam. The work was really arduous, but the spot was shaded by thickly foliaged trees, and the shallow water, in which he stood in his bare feet, cooled his blood. Bending under his heavy implement filled with the heavier mud he worked like a machine, the sweat streaming from him, and constantly conscious of that strange, aching vacancy in his heart which nothing could fill. At noon he put down his spade and went to Hoag's, as he had often done before, for his lunch. No one else was in the dining-room, and Mrs. Tilton brought him his dinner, putting it before him in a gentle, motherly way.