"Yes, Massa Richard, I 'member 'em! Natty Bumppo fire t'oder gun. You know, sir, the folk say, Natty kill 'em."
"The folks lie, you black devil!" exclaimed Richard in great heat. "I have not shot even a gray squirrel these four years, to which that old rascal has not laid claim, or some one for him. This is a damn'd envious world that we live in—people are always for dividing the credit of a thing, in order to bring down merit to their own level. Now they have a story about the Patent, that Hiram Doolittle helped to plan the steeple to St. Paul's; when Hiram knows that it is entirely mine; a little taken from a print of its namesake in London, I own; but all the rest is mine."
"I don't know where he come from," said the black, losing every mark of humour in an expression of deep admiration, "but eb'ry body say, he wonnerful hansome."
"And well they may say so, Aggy," cried Richard, leaving the buck, and walking up to the negro with the air of a man who has new interest awakened within him. "I think I may say, without bragging, that it is the handsomest and the most scientific country church in America. I know that the Connecticut settlers talk about their Weathersfield meeting-house; but I never believe more than half of what they say, they are such unconscionable braggers. Just as you have got a thing done, if they see it likely to be successful, they are always for interfering; and then its ten to one but they lay claim to half, or even all of the credit. You may remember, Aggy, when I painted the sign of the bold dragoon for Capt. Hollister, there was that fellow, who was about town laying brick dust on the houses, came one day and offered to mix what I call the streaky black, for the tail and mane, and then, because it
