"

"Now see here," blurted Sam, "if you don't like our work let's see you
do it better. There's lots to do yet."

"Where?"

"Oh, ask Yan. He's bossin' the job. Old Caleb wouldn't let me in. It
just broke my heart. I sobbed all the way home, didn't I, Yan?

"There's the smoke-flaps to stitch on and hem, and the pocket at
the top of the flaps--and--I--suppose," Yan added, as a feeler,
"it--would--be--better--if--hemmed--all--around."

"Now, I tell ye what I'll do. If you boys'll go to the 'Corner'
to-night and get my boots that the cobbler's fixing, I'll sew on the
smoke-flaps."

"I'll take that offer," said Yan; "and say, Si, it doesn't really
matter which is the outside. You can turn the cover so the patches
will be in."

The boys got the money to pay for the boots, and after supper they set
out on foot for the "Corner," two miles away.

"He's a queer duck," and Sam jerked his thumb back to show that he
meant Si Lee; "sounds like a Chinese laundry. I guess that's the only
thing he isn't. He can do any mortal thing but get on in life. He's
been a soldier an' a undertaker an' a cook He plays a fiddle he made
himself; it's a rotten bad one, but it's away ahead of his playing. He
stuffs birds--that Owl in the parlour is his doin'; he tempers razors,
kin doctor a horse or fix up a watch, an' he does it in about the same
way, too; bleeds a horse no matter what ails it, an' takes another
wheel out o' the watch every times he cleans it. He took Larry de
Neuville's old clock apart to clean once--said he knew all about
it--an' when he put it together again he had wheels enough left over
for a new clock.

"He's too smart an' not smart enough. There ain't anything on earth
he can't do a little, an' there ain't a blessed thing that he can do
right up first-class, but thank goodness sewing canvas is his long
suit. You see he was a sailor for three years--longest time he ever
kept a job, fur which he really ain't to blame, since it was a whaler
on a three-years' cruise."

VII

The Calm Evening

It was a calm June evening, the time of the second daily outburst of
bird song, the day's aftermath. The singers seemed to be in unusual
numbers as well. Nearly every good perch had some little bird that
seemed near bursting with joy and yet trying to avert that dire
catastrophe.

As the boys went down the road by the outer fence of their own orchard
a Hawk came sailing over, silencing as he came the singing within a