"Looky h-yer, Tom, you're a-gittin' kind-uh white-like about the gills, un 'f you try to keep up weth me, yer hide 'll be on the fence afore night." "I know that," said Tom, who found himself so thoroughly beaten that there was no use in denying it. "Well, hang yer scythe on that air red-haw over there un take a leetle rest, un then try a pitch-fork awhile. I 'lowed I'd see what sort uv stuff you've got, seein's you wuz so almighty gritty. A bigger man'n you couldn't hold agin me"; and Bob let the amusement he felt at Tom's discomfiture escape in a long hearty chuckle, rising at length into a loud laugh, as he reversed his scythe and fell to whetting it, making the neighboring woods ring with the tune he beat on the resonant metal,--a kind of accompaniment to the briskness of his spirit. And now Barbara appeared bringing the snack that was commonly served to the mowers in the forenoon. Bob hung up his scythe, and, having taken some whisky, joined the exhausted Tom under the shady boughs of a black walnut. Barbara uncovered her basket, which contained an apple-pie to be divided between the two and a bottle of sweet milk. Tom had stretched himself in sheer exhaustion on a swath of hay. "You foolish boy," said Barbara. "You've gone at your work too brash. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Here, take some of this pie; and don't you work so hard the rest of the day." "Tom," said Bob, speaking with his mouth full of pie, "'f I had the eddication you've got, you wouldn't ketch me in this yere hot sun. I'd take a school. What's eddication good fer, anyhow, ef 't ain't to git a feller out uh the hot sun?" But for the present Tom resolved to stick faithfully to his toil. As the days wore on, and he became accustomed to the strain, he found the work a sedative; he was usually too tired to think much of his disappointment. Only the face of Rachel Albaugh haunted his visions in lonely hours, and at times a rush of indignant feeling towards George Lockwood disturbed his quiet.