want to get caught so again, not this year, so I gin this fellow $6 a month for six months—$36 I gin him in hard silver."
"Paid it to him in advance?"
"Yes, he wouldn't come 'less I'd pay him right then. Well, he worked one month, and maybe eight days—no, I don't think it was more than six days over a month, and then he went away, and I hain't seen a sight on him since. I expect I shall lose my money—reckon he don't ever intend to come back; he knows I'm right in harvest, and want him now, if ever I do."
"What did he go away for?"
"Why, he said he was sick, but if he was, he got well mighty easy after he stopped working."
"Do you know where he is now?"
"Oh, yes, he's going round here."
"What is he doing?"
"Well, he's just goin' round."
"Is he at work for any one else?"
"Reckon not—no, he's just goin' round from one place to another."
At supper and breakfast surprise was expressed that I declined coffee, and more still that I drank water instead of milk. The woman observed, "'twas cheap boarding me." The man said he must get home a couple more cows; they ought to drink milk more, coffee was so high now, and he believed milk would be just as healthy. The woman asked the price of coffee in New York; I could not tell her, but said I believed it was uncommonly high; the crops had been short. She asked how coffee grew. I told her as well as I was able, but concluded by saying I had never seen it growing. "Don't you raise coffee in New York?" she asked; "I thought that was where it came from."
The butter was excellent. I said so, and asked if they
