So good he acted about every thing. It beat all. Why, he hadn't been in the house half an hour when he offered to help me whitewash. I told him I wouldn't let him, for it would spile his clothes, and he hadn't ever been there a visitin' before, and I didn't want to put him to work. But he hung on, and nothin' to do but what he had got to take hold and whitewash. And I had to give up and let him; for I thought it wus better manners to put a visiter to work, than it wus to dispute and quarrel with 'em: and, of course, he wasn't used to it, and he filled one eye most full of lime. It wus dretful painful, dretful. But I swabbed it out with viniger, and it got easier about the middle of the afternoon. It bein' work that he never done before, the whitewashin' looked like fury; but I done it all over after him, and so I got along with it, though it belated me. But his offerin' to do it showed his good will, anyway. I shouldn't have done any more at all after Elburtus had come, only I had got into the job, and had to finish it; for I always think it is better manners, when visitors come unexpected, and ketch you in some mean job, to go on and finish it as quick as you can, ruther than to set down in the dirt, and let them, ditto, and the same. And Josiah was ketched jest as I wus, for he had a piece of winter wheat that wus spilin' to be cut; and he had got the most of it down, and had to finish it: it wus lodged so he had to cut it by hand,--the machine wouldn't work on it. And jest as quick as Elburtus had got so he could see out of that eye, nothin' to do but what he had got to go out and help Josiah cut that wheat. He hadn't touched a scythe for years and years, and it wasn't ten minutes before his hands wus blistered on the inside. But he would keep at it till the blisters broke, and then he had to stop anyway. He got along quite well after that: only the lot where Josiah wus to work run along by old Bobbet'ses, and he had carried a jug of sweetened water and viniger and ginger out into the lot, and Elburtus had talked so polite and cordial to him, a conversin' on politics, that he got attached to him, and treated him to the sweetened water. [Illustration: ELBURTUS ENDEARIN' HIMSELF TO MR. BOBBET.] And Elburtus, not wantin' to hurt his feelin's, drinked about 3 quarts. It made him deathly sick, for it went aginst his stomach from the first: he never loved it. And Miss Bobbet duz fix it dretful sickish,--sweetens it with sale mollasses for one thing. Oh, how sick that feller wus when he come in to supper! had to lay right down on the lounge. Says I, “Elburtus, what made you drink it, when it went aginst your stomach?” says I. “Why,” says he in a faint voice, and pale round his lips as any thing, “I didn't want to hurt his feelin's by refusin'.” Says I, out to one side, “Did you ever, Josiah Allen, see such goodness in your life?”