Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
"He never!" cried Rufe, emphatically, unwilling to share the credit, or perhaps discredit, of the enterprise. "Birt dunno nuthin' 'bout it ter this good day." Rufe winked slyly. "Birt would tell mam ez I hed been a-foolin' with her shawl an' bonnet." Andy Byers still maintained a most incongruous gravity. "It warn't Birt's doin', at all?" he said interrogatively, and with a pondering aspect.
"Fifty cents a day eh?" said the stranger. At the repetition of the sum, it occurred to Birt, growing more familiar with the eccentricity of his companion, that he ought not in sheer silliness to throw away a chance for employment. "Kin I ask my mother?" he said dubiously. "By all means ask your mother," replied the stranger heartily. Birt's last fantastic doubt vanished.
He scanned Birt narrowly. This was the first time the two had met since Birt's ill-starred confidence there by the bark-mill. "What ails ye, ter 'low ez it air ME ez hev got yer grant, Nate Griggs?" Birt asked, steadily meeting the accusation. The excitement had impaired for the moment Nate Griggs's cunning.
The tanner suddenly found that conscience might prove a factor even in so simple a matter as driving the old mule around the bark-mill. The boy who had taken Birt's place was a sullen, intractable fellow, and brutal. When he yelled and swore and plied the lash, the old mule would occasionally back his ears. The climax came one day when the rash boy kicked the animal.
This was an unnecessarily unkind speech, and Birt's anger flamed out. "Ef we-uns war of a size, Andy Byers," he said, hotly, "I'd make ye divide work a leetle more ekal than ye does." Andy Byers dropped the hide in his hands, and looked steadily across the pit at Birt, as if he were taking the boy's measure. "Ye mean ter say ef ye hed the bone an' muscle ye'd knock me down, do ye?" he sneered.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking