ou numbskull?"
"Well, I never saw anything"----

"You'll have a chance mighty quick, sir. Grab ahold, sir! Swing 'im
around--there! Now easy, easy! Now, then, one, two; one, two--that's
right."

While he dipped the porker in the water, pulling with his companion
rhythmically upon the hook, he talked incessantly, mixing up scraps of
stories and boastings of what he could do, with commands of what he
wanted the other man to do.

"The best man I ever worked with. _Now turn 'im, turn 'im!_" he yelled,
reaching over Jennings' wrist. "Grab under my wrist. There! won't ye
never learn how to turn a hawg? _Now, out with 'im!_" was his next wild
yell, as the steaming hog was jerked out of the water upon the planking.
"Now try the hair on them ears! Beautiful scald," he said, clutching his
hand full of bristles and beaming with pride. "Never see anything finer.
Here, Bub, a pail of hot water, quick! Try one of them candlesticks!
They ain't no better scraper than the bottom of an old iron candlestick;
no, sir! Dum your new-fangled scrapers! I made a bet once with old Jake
Ridgeway that I could scrape the hair off'n two hawgs, by gum, quicker'n
he could one. Jake was blowin' about a new scraper he had ...

"Yes, yes, yes, dump it right into the barrel. Condemmit! Ain't you got
no gumption?... So Sim Smith, he held the watch. Sim was a mighty good
hand t'work with; he was about the only man I ever sawed with who didn't
ride the saw. He could jerk a cross-cut saw.... Now let him in again,
now; _he-ho_, once again! _Roll him over now_; that foreleg needs a tech
o' water. Now out with him again; that's right, that's right! By gol, a
beautiful scald as ever I see!"

Milton, standing near, caught his eye again. "Clean that ear, sir! What
the devil you standin' there for?" He returned to his story after a
pause. "A--n--d Jake he scraped away--_Hyare_," he shouted, suddenly,
"don't ruggle the skin like that! Can't you see the way I do it? Leave
it smooth as a baby, sir--yessir!"

He worked on in this way all day, talking unceasingly, never shirking a
hard job, and scarcely showing fatigue at any moment.

"I'm short o' breath a leetle, that's all; never git tired, but my wind
gives out. Dum cold got on me, too."

He ate a huge supper of liver and potatoes, still working away hard at
an ancient horse-trade, and when he drove off at night, he had not yet
finished a single one of the dozen stories he had begun.

III.

But p