drove back to the village with him that night he told me
that I could go into the office of Wright and Baldwin after harvesting.

"It will do for a start," he said. "A little later I shall try to find a
better place for you."

I began my work taking only the studies at school which would qualify me
for surveying. I had not been in Canton a week when I received a rude
shock which was my first lesson in the ungentle art of politics. Rodney
Barnes and Uncle Peabody were standing with me in front of a store. A
man came out with Colonel Hand and said in a loud voice that Sile Wright
was a spoilsman and a drunkard--in politics for what he could get out of
it.

My uncle turned toward the stranger with a look of amazement. Rodney
Barnes dropped the knife with which he had been whittling. I felt my
face turning red.

"What's that, mister?" asked Rodney Barnes.

The stranger repeated his statement and added that he could prove it.

"Le's see ye," said Barnes as he approached him.

There was a half moment of silence.

"Go on with yer proof," Rodney insisted, his great right hand trembling
as he whittled.

"There are plenty of men in Albany that know the facts," said the
stranger.

"Any other proof to offer?"

"That's enough."

"Oh, I see, ye can't prove it to-day, but ye don't mind sayin' it
to-day. Say, mister, where do you live?"

"None o' your dam' business."

Swift as a cat's paw the big, right hand of Rodney caught the man by his
shoulder and threw him down. Seizing him by the collar and the seat of
his trousers our giant friend lifted the slanderer and flung him to the
roof of a wooden awning in front of the grocer's shop near which we
stood.

"Now you stay there 'til I git cooled off or you'll be hurt," said
Rodney. "You better be out o' my reach for a few minutes."

A crowd had begun to gather.

"I want you all to take a look at that man," Rodney shouted. "He says
Sile Wright is a drunkard an' a thief."

Loud jeers followed the statement, then a volley of oaths and a moment
of danger, for somebody shouted:

"Le's tar an' feather him."

"No, we'll just look at him a few minutes," Rodney Barnes shouted. "He's
one o' the greatest curiosities that ever came to this town."

The slanderer, thoroughly frightened, stood silent a few moments like a
prisoner in the stocks. Soon the grocer let him in at an upper window.

Then the loud voice of Rodney Barnes rang like a trumpet in the words:

"Any man w