“Let down your gownd, Sally, and give _me_ that ladle. What'd be a mighty heap o' work for you, in that flustered condition, is child's-play to the likes o' me, that's as steady as a cart-horse,--not that self-praise, as the sayin' is, is any recommendation,--but my kickin' and prancin' days is over, and high time, too.” “No, Betsy, I'll not allow it!” cried Sally. “You must enjoy yourself, too.” But she had parted with the ladle, while speaking, and Miss Lavender, repeating the words “Enjoy yourself, too!” quietly took her place in the kitchen. The young men, as they arrived, took their way to the corn-field, piloted by Joe and Jake Fairthorn. These boys each carried a wallet over his shoulders, the jug in the front end balancing that behind, and the only casualty that occurred was when Jake, jumping down from a fence, allowed his jugs to smite together, breaking one of them to shivers. “There, that'll come out o' your pig-money,” said Joe. “I don't care,” Jake retorted, “if daddy only pays me the rest.” The boys, it must be known, received every year the two smallest pigs of the old sow's litter, with the understanding that these were to be their separate property, on condition of their properly feeding and fostering the whole herd. This duty they performed with great zeal and enthusiasm, and numberless and splendid were the castles which they built with the coming money; yet, alas! when the pigs were sold, it always happened that Farmer Fairthorn found some inconvenient debt pressing him, and the boys' pig-money was therefore taken as a loan,--only as a loan,--and permanently invested. There were between three and four hundred shocks to husk, and the young men, armed with husking-pegs of hickory, fastened by a leathern strap over the two middle fingers, went bravely to work. Mark Deane, who had reached home that afternoon, wore the seventy-five dollars in a buckskin belt around his waist, and anxiously awaited the arrival of Gilbert Potter, of whose adventure he had already heard. Mark's presumed obligations to Alfred Barton prevented him from expressing his overpowering contempt for that gentleman's conduct, but he was not obliged to hold his tongue about Gilbert's pluck and decision, and he did not. The latter, detained at the house by Mother Fairthorn and Sally,--both of whom looked upon him as one arisen from the dead,--did not reach the field until the others had selected their rows, overturned the shocks, and were seated in a rustling line, in the moonlight. “Gilbert!” shouted Mark, “come here! I've kep' the row next to mine, for you! And I want to get a grip o' your hand, my bold boy!”