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And then I told him just how matters stood. His house was to be seized on the mortgage, and he was to move to the poorhouse next day. You never see a man more surprised or worse cut up. Him to the poorhouse? HIM–one of the oldest families on the Cape? You’d think he was the Grand Panjandrum. Well, the dignity didn’t work, so he commenced on the lumbago; and that didn’t work, neither. But do you think he give up the ship? Not much; he commenced to explain why he hadn’t been able to earn a living and the reasons why he’d ought to have another chance. Talk! Well, if I hadn’t been warned he’d have landed ME, all right. I never heard a better sermon nor one with more long words in it.

I actually pitied him. It seemed a shame that a feller who could argue like that should have to go to the poorhouse; he’d ought to run a summer hotel–when the boarders kicked ’cause there was yeller-eyed beans in the coffee he would be the one to explain that they was lucky to get beans like that without paying extra for ’em. Thinks I, “I’m an idiot, but I’ll make him one more offer.”

So I says: “See here, Mr. Blueworthy, I could use another man in the stable at the Old Home House. If you want the job you can have it. ONLY, you’ll have to work, and work hard.”

Well, sir, would you believe it?–his face fell like a cook-book cake. That kind of chance wa’n’t what he was looking for. He shuffled and hitched around, and finally he says: “I’ll–Ill consider your offer,” he says.

That was too many for me. “Well, I’ll be yardarmed!” says I, and went off and left him “considering.” I don’t know what his considerations amounted to. All I know is that next day they took him to the poorhouse.

And from now on this yarn has got to be more or less hearsay. I’ll have to put this and that together, like the woman that made the mince meat. Some of the facts I got from a cousin of Deborah Badger’s, some of them I wormed out of Asaph himself one time when he’d had a jug come down from the city and was feeling toler’ble philanthropic and conversationy. But I guess they’re straight enough.

Seems that, while I was down notifying Blueworthy, Cap’n Poundberry had gone over to the poorhouse to tell the Widow Badger about her new boarder. The widow was glad to hear the news.

“He’ll be somebody to talk to, at any rate,” says she. “Poor old Betsy Mullen ain’t exactly what you’d call company for a sociable body. But I’ll mind what you say, Cap’n Benijah. It takes more than a slick tongue to come it over me. I’ll make that lazy man work or know the reason why.”

So when Asaph arrived–per truck wagon–at three o’clock the next afternoon, Mrs. Badger was ready for him. She didn’t wait to shake hands or say: “Glad to see you.” No, sir! The minute he landed she sent him out by the barn with orders to chop a couple of cords of oak slabs that was piled there. He groaned and commenced to develop lumbago symptoms, but she cured ’em in a hurry by remarking that her doctor’s book said vig’rous exercise was the best physic, for that kind of disease, and so he must chop hard. She waited till she heard the ax “chunk” once or twice, and then she went into the house, figgering that she’d gained the first lap, anyhow.

But in an hour or so it come over her all of a sudden that ’twas awful quiet out by the woodpile. She hurried to the back door, and there was Ase, setting on the ground in the shade, his eyes shut and his back against the chopping block, and one poor lonesome slab in front of him with a couple of splinters knocked off it. That was his afternoon’s work.