“Jeremiah!”

“What’s wanted?” asked Brackett, impatiently.

“I want some firewood, right off!”

“You’re always wanting firewood!” grumbled² her husband.

“I should like to know how you expect me to cook your supper without wood to burn,” retorted Mrs. Brackett.

“Send out Tom for some.”

Tom was the eldest³ of Mr. Brackett’s children, and had now attained⁴ the age of eight years.

“So I have; and he says there isn’t any{182} split,” said Mrs. Brackett. “Just fly around and saw and split some, or I shall have the fire out.”

Mr. Brackett took the pipe from his mouth and sauntered toward the wood pile in a very discontented frame of mind.

“My wife burns a sight of wood,” he said to himself. “It’s saw and split all the time. That’s where I miss Peter. The lazy little vagabond, to leave me this morning, and now I’ve to do his work and my own, too.”

Peter might be a lazy little vagabond, but the work he did was certainly more than fell to the lot of his employer, though he had worked for almost nothing.

The fact was, Mr. Brackett was a lazy man, and considered that in superintending others he was doing all that could be expected of him.

Peter had milked three of the six cows, foddered them, cleaned out the stalls, sawed and split the wood, and done the numberless chores Mrs. Brackett found for him, besides doing a share of the farm work.

At times during the year, Mr. Brackett hired a man by the day, but generally had a quarrel with him when pay day came, being as mean as he was lazy.

Jeremiah Brackett began to ply⁵ the saw and ax, knowing that his supper depended upon it, and soon little Tommy was able to carry in an armful to his mother.{183}

He sawed a little more, and then resumed his smoking.

“It’s slave, slave all the time!” he muttered. “The old man might help me a little, now that I’ve lost Peter—but no, he’s too much of a gentleman. He must take his

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