Only  once  —  it  was  last  winter  —  have  I  seen  him  dismayed
by  the  frowning  fates.  The  doctor  thought  his  wife  would
die,  and  they  had  nothing  to  eat  in  the  house.  When  Abra-
ham appeared  before  me  at  that  time,  "  his  countenance  was
fallen,"  as  the  quaint,  strong  language  of  Scripture  expresses
it.  He  made  no  complaints,  however,  and  indulged  in  no
Byronic  allusions  to  destiny.  Indeed,  he  said  very  little,


PREPARING  AND  ENRICHING   THE  SOIL.         73

but  merely  drooped  and  cowered,  as  if  the  wolf  at  the  door
and  the  shadow  of  death  within  it  were  rather  more  than  he
could  face  at  one  and  the  same  time.  It  soon  became  evi-
dent, however,  that  his  wife  would  "  pull  through,"  as  he
said,  and  then  the  wolf  did  n't  trouble  him  a  mite.  He  in-
stalled himself  as  cook,  nurse,  and  house  man-of-all-work,
finding  also  abundant  leisure  to  smoke  his  pipe  with  infinite
content.  One  morning  he  was  seen  baking  buckwheat
cakes  for  the  children ;  each  one  in  turn  received  an  allow-
ance on  a  tin  plate,  and  squatted  here  and  there  on  the
floor  to  devour  it ;  and,  from  the  master  of  ceremonies
down,  there  was  not  an  indication  that  all  was  not  just  as  it
should  be.  A  few  days  later,  I  met  him  coming  back  to
his  work  with  his  pipe  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  and  the
old  confident  twinkle  in  his  eye  as  he  said,  "  Mornin',  Bos-
sie."  Now,  Abraham  carries  his  peculiar  characteristics
into  grubbing.  If  I  should  set  him  at  a  hundred-acre  field
full  of  stumps  and  stones,  and  tell  him  to  clear  it  to  the
depth  of  two  feet,  he  would  begin  without  any  apparent  mis-
giving, and  with  no  more  thought  for  the  magnitude  of  his
task  than  he  has  for  the  tangled  and  stubborn  mysteries  of
life  in  general,  or  the  dubious  question  of  "  what  shall  be  on
the  morrow "  in  his  own  experience.  He  would  see  only
the  little  strip  that  he  proposed  to  clear  up  that  day,  an'd
would  go  to  work  in  a  way  all  his  own.
