The workers were occupied at a little distance, in replacing
boxes, beds, and some household trumpery, which had been taken out of
the wagon, to enable them to effect its release from the slough in which
it had cast one of its wheels, and broken its axle, and the restoration
of which had made their supper so late in the night. The heavier
difficulties of their labor had been got over, and with limbs warmed and
chafed by the extra exercise they had undergone, the whites had thrown
themselves under a tree, at a little distance from the fire at which the
supper was in preparation, while a few pine torches, thrown together,
gave them sufficient light to read and remark the several countenances
of their group.
"Well, by dogs, we've had a tough 'bout of it, boys; and, hark'ye,
strannger, gi' us your hand. I don't know what we should have done
without you, for I never seed man handle a little poleaxe as you did
that same affair of your'n. You must have spent, I reckon, a pretty
smart time at the use of it, now, didn't ye?"
To this speech of the farmer, a ready reply was given by the stranger,
in the identical voice and language of our old acquaintance, the pedler,
Jared Bunce, of whom, and of whose stock in trade, the reader will
probably have some recollection.
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