in a tight place.

"Ye see, yer Aunt Lois was knowin' to all this 'ere about Ruth, so
there wer'n't no gettin' away from it; and it's about as remarkable a
providence as any o' them of Mister Cotton Marther's 'Magnilly.' So if
you'll come up in the barn-chamber this arternoon, where I've got a lot
o' flax to hatchel out, I'll tell ye all about it."

So that afternoon beheld Sam arranged at full length on a pile of
top-tow in the barn-chamber, hatchelling by proxy by putting Harry and
myself to the service.

"Wal, now, boys, it's kind o' refreshing to see how wal ye take hold,"
he observed. "Nothin' like bein' industrious while ye'r young: gret
sight better now than loafin off, down in them medders.

"'In books and work and useful play
Let my fust years be past:
So shall I give for every day
Some good account at last.'"

"But, Sam, if we work for you, you must tell us that story about Ruth
Sullivan."

"Lordy massy! yis,--course I will. I've had the best kind o' chances
of knowin' all about that 'are. Wal, you see there was old Gineral
Sullivan, he lived in state and grande'r in the old Sullivan house out
to Roxberry. I been to Roxberry, and seen that 'are house o' Gineral
Sullivan's. There was one time that I was a consid'able spell lookin'
round in Roxberry, a kind o' seein' how things wuz there, and whether
or no there mightn't be some sort o' providential openin' or suthin'. I
used to stay with Aunt Polly Ginger. She was sister to Mehitable Ginger,
Gineral Sullivan's housekeeper, and hed the in and out o' the Sullivan
house, and kind o' kept the run o' how things went and came in it. Polly
she was a kind o' cousin o' my mother's, and allers glad to see me. Fact
was, I was putty handy round house; and she used to save up her broken
things and sich till I come round in the fall; and then I'd mend 'em up,
and put the clock right, and split her up a lot o' kindlings, and board
up the cellar-windows, and kind o' make her sort o' comfortable,--she
bein' a lone body, and no man round. As I said, it was sort o'
convenient to hev me; and so I jest got the run o' things in the
Sullivan house pretty much as ef I was one on 'em, Gineral Sullivan he
kept a grand house, I tell you. You see, he cum from the old country,
and felt sort o' lordly and grand; and they used to hev the gretest kind
o' doin's there to the Sullivan house. Ye ought ter a seen that 'are
house,--gret big front hall and gret wi