"Hello, Mort!" they all cried at once as he came up taking off his wide-rimmed straw hat and wiping his forehead. "We thought you wuzn't a comin'. Here, you and Conkey choose up." [Illustration: MORT GOODWIN.] "Let somebody else," said Morton, who was shy, and ready to give up such a distinction to others. "Backs out!" said Conkey, sneering. "Not a bit of it," said Mort. "You don't appreciate kindness; where's your stick?" By tossing a stick from one to the other, and then passing the hand of one above that of the other, it was soon decided that Bill McConkey should have the first choice of men, and Morton Goodwin the first choice of corn. The shuckers were thus all divided into two parts. Captain Lumsden, as host, declining to be upon either side. Goodwin chose the end of the corn which had, as the boys declared, "a desp'rate sight of nubbins." Then, at a signal, all hands went to work. The corn had to be husked and thrown into a crib, a mere pen of fence-rails. "Now, boys, crib your corn," said Captain Lumsden, as he started the whiskey bottle on its encouraging travels along the line of shuckers. "Hurrah, boys!" shouted McConkey. "Pull away, my sweats! work like dogs in a meat-pot; beat 'em all to thunder, er bust a biler, by jimminy! Peel 'em off! Thunder and blazes! Hurrah!" This loud hallooing may have cheered his own men, but it certainly stimulated those on the other side. Morton was more prudent; he husked with all his might, and called down the lines in an undertone, "Let them holler, boys, never mind Bill; all the breath he spends in noise we'll spend in gittin' the corn peeled. Here, you! don't you shove that corn back in the shucks! No cheats allowed on this side!" Goodwin had taken his place in the middle of his own men, where he could overlook them and husk, without intermission, himself; knowing that his own dexterity was worth almost as much as the work of two men. When one or two boys on his side began to run over to see how the others were getting along, he ordered them back with great firmness. "Let them alone," he said, "you are only losing time; work hard at first, everybody will work hard at the last." For nearly an hour the huskers had been stripping husks with unremitting eagerness; the heap of unshucked corn had grown smaller, the crib was nearly full of the white and yellow ears, and a great billow of light husks had arisen behind the eager workers. "Why don't you drink?" asked Jake Sniger, who sat next to Morton. "Want's to keep his breath sweet for Patty Lumsden," said Ben North, with a chuckle. Morton did not knock Ben over, and Ben never knew how near he came to getting a whipping. It was now the last heavy pull of the shuckers. McConkey had drunk rather freely, and his "Pull away, sweats!" became louder than ever. Morton found it necessary to run up and down his line once or twice, and hearten his men by telling them that they were "sure to beat if they only stuck to it well."