But in this he made slow
progress. From the kitchen came cheerful sounds and scents of cooking,
and ever and anon from the door waddled, with quite surprising celerity,
the unwieldy bulk of the mistress of the house.
"Now, that's jest like yer Pa," Cameron heard her grumbling to her
daughter, "bringin' a man here jest at the busy season who don't know
nothin'. He's peckin' away at 'em blocks like a rooster peckin' grain."
"He's willin' enough, Ma," replied the girl, "and I guess he'll learn."
"Learn!" puffed Mrs. Haley contemptuously. "Did ye ever see an
old-country man learn to handle an axe or a scythe after he was growed
up? Jest look at 'im. Thank goodness! there's Tim."
"Here, Tim!" she called from the door, "best split some o' that wood
'fore breakfast."
Tim approached Cameron with a look of pity on his face.
"Let me have a try," he said. Cameron yielded him the axe. The boy set
on end the block at which Cameron had been laboring and, with a swift
glancing blow of the axe, knocked off a slab.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Cameron admiringly, "how did you do that?"
For answer the boy struck again the same glancing blow, a slab started
and, at a second light blow, fell to the ground.
"I say!" exclaimed Cameron again, "I must learn that trick."
"Oh, that's easy!" said Tim, knocking the slabs off from the outside of
the block.
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