“He is always saying that,” Big Adam said indignantly, “but I assure you on my honor that he never held a plough or pitched hay a day in his life. Why, he is not here a third of his time. He came home last night after an absence of four weeks; I don’t know where he has been, but to some of the towns a long way off, probably. At ten or eleven o’clock he will breakfast, and then I shall hitch up and drive him over the place, during which time he will point out and suggest enough work to keep a dozen men busy for months; and after assuring me it ought all to be done before night, he will return to the house to lounge about. In a day or two he will go away again, and come back when he gets ready. That’s the kind of a farmer Biggs is, but I must say for him that he is quiet and peaceable. I wish I could say as much for his sister, the old pelican.” Up to this time Big Adam had been wearing his Λ-shaped hat so far back on his head that I was wondering it did not fall off; but as if there were some people so contemptible that he could not possibly mention them without showing his temper, he jerked the hat over on his low forehead when he said this, and, looking out from under it with his little eyes, viciously said, “Damn.” “And who is his sister?” I asked. “Old Missus Deming, Agnes’s mother; the little old woman they were careful you should not see.” It came to me all at once--how foolish of me not to have thought of it before--why Agnes never talked about her mother, and why she always seemed to be glad to be away from her; she was disagreeable, not only to Big Adam, but to every one around her. I understood now that Agnes was frightened when I first came for fear I should see her mother, and not for fear her mother would see me, as I had imagined; and I felt so much better that I had a mind to walk in the yard in plain view of the house, that Mrs. Deming might regret not having made my acquaintance. I told Adam that I had seen her, however, and narrated the circumstance of her appearance in the room after the children. The hired man expressed his satisfaction at this very much as I have seen young colts express it, by kicking his legs out in various directions, and snorting. After he had enjoyed himself in this manner for a while he said:-- “It’s just like her, though. They might have known better than to have left her alone. It’s a wonder she didn’t hit you; I wish she had, for then you would despise her, as I do.”