Page 40 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

CHAPTER VIII

--A NOVEL BEAR TRAP

"You don’t know of anybody hereabouts that wants to hire a good hand, I
s’pose?" asked a stranger one August afternoon, as, without unslinging his

pack, he set his gun against the log wall beside the door, and leaned upon
his axe at the threshold.

By degrees Seth Beeman had enlarged his clearing so far that he already
needed stronger hands than Nathan’s to help him in the care of the land

already in tilth and in the further extension of his betterments, but he
scanned the man closely before he answered. Though unprepossessing,

low-browed, and surly looking, he was evidently a stout fellow, and
accustomed to work. At length a reply was made by asking such questions
as were a matter of course in those days, and are not yet quite obsolete in

Yankeeland.

The stranger readily said his name was Silas Toombs, that he was from
Jersey way, and wished, when he had earned enough, to take up a right of
land hereabouts, in a region he had often heard extolled by his father, who

had served here in Captain Bergen’s company of Rogers’s Rangers. Seth
had previously ascertained that no grown-up son of any of his neighbors

could be spared to help him, so he finally hired this man, who proved to be
efficient and faithful, although not a genial companion, such as an old-time
farmer wished to find in his hired help. Ruth treated him with the kindness

so natural to her, though she could scarcely conceal her aversion. This, if he
understood, he did not seem to notice any more than he did the undisguised

dislike of Nathan.

The remainder of the summer and half of the fall passed uneventfully, till

one day, when Ruth had been called to the bedside of Mrs. Newton, who
was ill of the fever so prevalent in new clearings, Nathan and his sister

were left in charge of the house, while their father and hired man worked in
a distant field.