The Village Convict | Page 5

bringing ridicule upon himself in case no fish should be
brought to him the next summer, he decided to do so, on the assurance
of three or four men that they meant to come to him. Nobody else had
such a chance,--a pond right by the shore.
One evening there was a knock at the door of Eliphalet Wood, the
owner of the burned barn. Eliphalet went to the door, but turned pale at
seeing Eph there.
"Oh, come in, come in!" he panted. "Glad to see you. Walk in. Have a
chair. Take a seat. Sit down."

But he thought his hour had come: he was alone in the house, and there
was no neighbor within call.
Eph took out a roll of bills, counted out eighty dollars, laid the money
on the table, and said quietly,--
"Give me a receipt on account."
When it was written he walked out, leaving Eliphalet stupefied.
*****
Joshua Carr was at work, one June afternoon, by the roadside, in front
of his low cottage, by an enormous pile of poles, which he was shaving
down for barrel-hoops, when Eph appeared.
"Hard at it, Joshua!" he said.
"Yes, yes!" said Joshua, looking up through his steel-bowed spectacles.
"Hev to work hard to make a livin'--though I don't know's I ought to
call it hard, neither; and yet it is ruther hard, too; but then, on t' other
hand, 't ain't so hard as a good many other things--though there is a
good many jobs that's easier. That's so! that 's so!
'Must we be kerried to the skies On feathery beds of ease?'
Though I don't know's I ought to quote a hymn on such a matter; but
then--I don' know's there's any partic'lar harm in't, neither."
Eph sat down on a pile of shavings and chewed a sliver; and the old
man kept on at his work.
"Hoop-poles goin' up and hoops goin' down," he continued. "Cur'us,
ain't it? But then, I don' know as 'tis; woods all bein' cut off--poles
gittin' scurcer--hoops bein' shoved in from Down East. That don't seem
just right, now, does it? But then, other folks must make a livin', too.
Still, I should think they might take up suthin' else; and yet, they might
say that about me. Understand, I don't mean to say that they actually do
say so; I don't want to run down any man unless I know--"

"I can't stand this," said Eph to himself; "I don't wonder that they
always used to put Joshua off at the first port, when he tried to go
coasting. They said he talked them crazy with nothing.
"I 'll go into the house and see Aunt Lyddy," he said aloud. "I 'm
loafing, this afternoon."
"All right! all right!" said Joshua. "Lyddy 'll be glad to see you--that is,
as glad as she would be to see anybody," he added, reaching out for a
pole. "Now, I don't s'pose that sounds very well; but still, you know
how she is--she allers likes to hev folks to talk, and then she's allers
sayin' talkin' wears on her; but I ought not to say that to you, because
she allers likes to see you--that is, as much as she likes to see anybody.
In fact, I think, on the whole--"
"Well, I'll take my chances," said Eph, laughing; and he opened the
gate and went in.
Joshua's wife, whom everybody called Aunt Lyddy, was rocking in a
high-backed-chair in the kitchen, and knitting. It was currently reported
that Joshua's habit of endlessly retracting and qualifying every idea and
modification of an idea which he advanced, so as to commit himself to
nothing, was the effect of Aunt Lyddy's careful revision.
"I s'pose she thought 't was fun to be talked deef when they was
courtin'," Captain Seth had once sagely remarked. "Prob'ly it sounded
then like a putty piece on a seraphine; but I allers cal'lated she 'd git her
fill of it, sooner or later. You most gin'lly git your fill o' one tune."
"How are you this afternoon, Aunt Lyddy?" asked Eph, walking in
without knocking, and sitting down near her.
"So as to be able to keep about," she replied. "It is a great mercy I ain't
afflicted with falling out of my chair, like Hepsy Jones, ain't it?"
"I 've brought you some oysters," he said. "I set the basket down on the
door-step. I just took them out of the water myself from the bed I
planted to the west of the water-fence."

"I always heard you was a great fisherman," said Aunt Lyddy, "but I
had no idea you would ever come here and boast of being able to catch
oysters. Poor things! How could they have got away? But why don't
you bring