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While we were curiously looking at the Tilden homestead, an old man came walking slowly down the road, a rake over his shoulder, one leg of his patched trousers stuck in a boot-top, a suspender missing, his old straw hat minus a goodly portion of its crown. He stopped, leaned upon his rake, and looked at us inquisitively, then remarked in drawling tone, "I know'd Sam Tilden." "Indeed!"
"I'll just take a look, anyhow, and see how much there is." He eyed uncertainly the small bag of table salt which he took from the soap-box cupboard nailed to the wall. "There isn't much of it, that's a fact. I guess they'll have to wait." He slammed the door of the improvised cupboard hard upon its leather hinges made of a boot-top, and turned away. "Aw, dog-gone it!" he cried, stopping short.
Meantime it was discovered that Owens, an overland driver, was missing, and a man ran to the large stable, and wading in, boot-top deep, discovered him asleep in his bed, awoke him, and waded out again. But Owens was drowsy and resumed his nap; but only for a minute or two, for presently he turned in his bed, his hand dropped over the side and came in contact with the cold water!
She was evidently staggered by this. "Of course I should hate it so would you," she rejoined, a trifle irritably. He stood silent, beating his stick nervously against his boot-top; and feeling that she had indeed found the right way of closing the discussion, she went on light-heartedly: "Oh, did I tell you that I showed Ellen my ring? She thinks it the most beautiful setting she ever saw.
It was rainin' in tons all this time an' I fancy the Left'nant's opinion o' the Am. Col.'s job had reined back another pace or two, especially as he'd slipped an' come down full length in the mud when haulin' on the drag-rope, an' had also slid one leg in the ditch well over the boot-top in reachin' out for a good swipe wi' the cane.
"Boots!" repeated the native of the Granite state, looking round him drolly; "perhaps not exactly the foot-part, and the soles, for they ought, in reason, to be under water; but every vessel that isn't coppered shows her boot-top of them, I'll swear I've seen ten thousand, more or less."
Hugh gave utterance to a genuine cavalier-like laugh, and, striking his boot-top with his riding-whip, returned: "Marry! but she will make a merry sight soaring through the air like a fisher-bird to be plunged beneath the water." "It will be a goodly sight, Hugh, and one I knew you would wish to see; therefore I sent for you." "You have my thanks; but where is the culprit?"
Then he cut from the boot-top a square of leather large enough for his purpose. This he laid on the kitchen-table, and proceeded to mark off and cut it into the shape of an orange-peel that has been quartered off the orange, leaving the four quarters joined together at the middle. This leather he put to soak over night.
I am not sure that he would have been rejected had he asked for admission, but he did not want to risk another refusal. He planned a less direct way of getting into the game. Asking his mother for a worn-out stocking, and procuring an old boot-top, he ravelled the stocking, winding the yarn into a ball of medium hardness.
Meantime it was discovered that Owens, an overland driver, was missing, and a man ran to the large stable, and wading in, boot-top deep, discovered him asleep in his bed, awoke him, and waded out again. But Owens was drowsy and resumed his nap; but only for a minute or two, for presently he turned in his bed, his hand dropped over the side and came in contact with the cold water!