“You’re right! I ain’t got no relatives an’ nobody to look after, so thar isn’t any sense in workin’ too much. That’s just what I say.” And that is just what he always did say, poor Simlin, but he never ceased, notwithstanding. Nearly every body that knew him and spoke to him about it always found him quick to acquiesce: “Thar was nothin’ plainer than what they said, and it was just what he said, too.” But it did not make the slightest difference, for he continued to work away all the same; so what else could be done but merely to give up the question? Now, if he had only expressed himself in decided opposition, there might have been something to hope for in the matter—at least, it would have opened the way for an argument upon the subject; and, then, there was always the possibility that he might be induced to change his mind. However, his provoking approval put the case wholly beyond reach. And so old Simlin, toiling early and late, quietly followed his vocation. There was not a better moulder in the whole foundry, or one that drew much higher wages. But, then, he was getting old. To be sure, he never had been young, so far as they knew any thing about him, even ten years ago, when, altogether unknown and friendless, he had first made his appearance in the village. But these ten years combined had not worn upon him like the last one. His head now, if once the soot had been removed, would not have shown a single black hair; and his voice was weak and cracked, and there was a visible trembling about the old man’s legs. Perhaps he did imbibe liquor; but nobody had any right to say so, for nobody could prove that it was true. Only of late he had a strangely confused manner when anyone addressed him, and, raising his unsteady hand nervously to his head, would repeat the sentence that had been on his lips a hundred, yes, a thousand times, until it had long ago grown into a stereotyped form—“I ain’t got no relatives an’ nobody to look after, so thar isn’t any sense in workin’ too much.” Perhaps he really thought that the people would never see that he was straining every effort, using every moment of his time, though, before the sun was up, and often after it was gone, the old man was at his place. And Simlin was always the first on hand if there was an extra job that would bring an extra cent.