“Come on, boys!” said Red, and the party rose from the table.  Later the waggon came up.

“Well, good day, Lettis,” said Red.  “If you can’t get quarters anywhere else, come on and help me hold the barn down.”

“Do you sleep in the barn?  Then I’ll come back sure.  Tell you how it is, Mr. Saunders.  I’ve been stuck up in a three-by-nine office for four years—­nose held to ‘A to M, Western branch,’ and if I’m not sick of it there’s no such thing as sickness; to get out and breathe the fresh air, to see the country, to be my own master!  Well, sir, it just makes me tremble to think of it.  I hope you find the straw-board what you want to take up.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if it would be,” answered Red.  “We’ll make a corking team to do business, Lettis, I can see that—­so cautious and full of tricks, and all that.”

The young man laughed and then sobered down.  “Of course, I know the whole thing would look insane to most people,” he said sturdily, “but I’ve been in business long enough to see sharp gentlemen come to grief in spite of their funny work.  I don’t believe a man’ll come to any more harm by believing people mean well by him than he would by working on the other tack.”

“Good boy!” said Red, slapping him on the back.  “You stick to that and you’ll get a satisfaction out of it that money couldn’t buy you.  Another thing, you’d never get a cent out of me in this world it you were one of these smooth young men.  My eye teeth are cut, son, for all I may seem easy.  The man that does me a trick has a chance for bad luck, and you can bet on that.”

“Lord!  I believe you!” replied Lettis, taking in the dimensions of his new friend.  “Well, good-bye for the present, Mr. Saunders—­thank you for the dinner and still more for the heart you have put into me.”

At six o’clock the fence was not quite finished.

“If you’ll stay with me until the thing’s done, I’ll stand another dollar all around,” said Red.  “I don’t want it to stare me in the face to-morrow.”

The eldest spoke up.  “We’ll stay with you, Mr. Saunders, but we don’t want any money for it, do we, fellers?”

“No,” they replied in chorus, well meaning what they said.

“Why, you’re perfectly welcome to the cash!” said Red.

“And you’re welcome to the work,” retorted the boy.  “We’re paid plenty as it is.”

“If that’s the way you look at it, I’m much obliged to you,” said Red, who would not have discouraged such a feeling for anything.  He said to himself, “This don’t seem much like the kind of people I’ve heard inhabited these parts.  Those boys are all right.  Reckon it you use people decent they’ll play up to your lead, no matter what country it is.”

At seven thirty the fence was done, gorgeous in a coat of fresh red paint, and the hands departed, each with a slice of Miss Mattie’s chocolate cake, a thing to make the heathen gods feel contemptuous of ambrosia.