tly
physical, but: there is no doubt that he had often a humorous intention.
It was Barlow, the man-of-all-work, who killed and plucked the poultry,
peeled the potatoes and picked the peas, pulled the sweet-corn and
the tomatoes, kindled the kitchen fire, harnessed the old splayfooted
mare,--safe for ladies and children, and intolerable for all others,
which formed the entire stud of the Jocelyn House stables,--dug the
clams, rowed and sailed the boat, looked after the bath-houses, and came
in contact with the guests at so many points that he was on easy terms
with them all. This ease tended to an intimacy which he was himself
powerless to repress, and which, from time to time, required their
intervention. He now wore a simple costume of shirt and trousers, the
latter terminated by a pair of broken shoes, and sustained by what he
called a single gallows; his broad-brimmed straw hat scooped down upon
his shoulders behind, and in front added to his congenital difficulty of
getting people in focus. "How do you do, this morning, Mrs. Maynard?" he
said.

"Oh, I'm first-rate, Mr. Barlow. What sort of day do you think it's
going to be for a sail?"

Barlow came out to the edge of the piazza, and looked at the sea and
sky. "First-rate. Fog's most burnt away now. You don't often see a fog
at Jocelyn's after ten o'clock in the mornin'."

He looked for approval to Mrs. Maynard, who said, "That's so. The air's
just splendid. It 's doing everything for me."

"It's these pine woods, back o' here. Every breath on 'em does ye good.
It's the balsam in it. D' you ever try," he asked, stretching his
hand as far up the piazza-post as he could, and swinging into a
conversational posture,--"d' you ever try whiskey--good odd Bourbon
whiskey--with white-pine chips in it?"

Mrs. Maynard looked up with interest, but, shaking her head, coughed for
no.

"Well, I should like to have you try that."

"What does it do?" she gasped, when she could get her breath.

"Well, it's soothin' t' the cough, and it builds ye up, every ways. Why,
my brother," continued the factotum, "he died of consumption when I was
a boy,--reg'lar old New England consumption. Don't hardly ever hear of
it any more, round here. Well, I don't suppose there's been a case
of reg'lar old New England consumption--well, not the old New England
kind--since these woods growed up. He used to take whiskey with
white-pine chips in it; and I can remember hearin 'em say that it done