I wait for a pause in the work, and try to screw my courage to the sticking-point; and then I tell Mr. Hill that the landlord at the tavern has sent me to him in the belief that he needs a man, and I add that I shall be glad of a job. Without preliminary questions Mr. Hill engages me on the spot, and makes me an offer of board and lodging, and seventy-five cents a day, which, he says, is the usual rate on the farms at that season. I close with the bargain, and ask to be set to work immediately. A minute later I am walking up the lane with a message for Mrs. Hill, to the effect that I am the new "hired man," and that she will please give me, to take to the pond, a certain "broad hoe" from the wagon-house. Mrs. Hill understands the situation at once; she makes no comment, but goes with me to the wagon-house, where she points out the hoe among other tools in a corner. She has said nothing so far, and I feel a little uncomfortable, but now she turns to me with a frank directness of manner that is very reassuring. "I ain't got no room for you in the house, but I guess you'll be comfortable sleeping out here. You can fetch your grip, and I'll show you your bed." Pack in hand, I follow her up the steps to the loft of the wagon-house, and she points to a cot near the farther window and a wooden chair beside it. "Some time to-day I'll make up your bed, and if there's anything you want you can tell me." This is her final word as she leaves me to return to the house. I slip on my overalls and take note of my new quarters. Windows at both ends of the loft provide ample ventilation. The cot is covered with a corn-husk mattress, as clean and fresh as a cock of new hay. The very floor is free from dust. The rafters hang thick with bunches of seed-corn on the cob, with their outer husks removed and the inner husks drawn back and neatly interwoven, the whole effect suggesting stalactites in a cave. The air is fragrant with the perfume from slices of apples, that are closely threaded and hung up to dry in graceful festoons from rafter to rafter. Five minutes later I am at work at the pond. The pond is an artificial one, created by a wooden dam. The water has been allowed to flow out, and the old woodwork is to be renewed. My immediate task is to dig a ditch along the outer side of the rotting planks, so that they can be removed and replaced by new ones. I am soon alone on the job, for the farmers' work calls them elsewhere. The experience in the sewer-ditch at Middletown is all to my credit, and my spirits rise with the discovery that I can handle my pick and shovel more effectively, and with less sense of exhaustion. And then the stint is my own, and no boss stands guard over me as a dishonest workman. At least I am conscious of none, and I am working on merrily, when suddenly I become aware of my employer bending over the ditch and watching me intently.