piece of woodland that winter, and the old man was laid up in the house with the rheumatism, off and on, and that made him fractious, and he and John connived together, till one day Joseph and Susan Ellen had taken the sleigh and gone to Freeport Four Corners to get some flour and one thing and another, and to have the horse shod beside, so they was likely to be gone two or three hours.  John Jacobs was going by with his oxen, and John Ashby and the old man hailed him, and said they’d give him a dollar if he’d help ’em, and they hitched the two yoke, his and their’n, to Joseph’s house.  There wa’n’t any foundation to speak of, the sills set right on the ground, and he’d banked it up with a few old boards and some pine spills and sand and stuff, just to keep the cold out.  There wa’n’t but a little snow, and the roads was smooth and icy, and they slipped it along as if it had been a hand-sled, and got it down the road a half a mile or so to the fork of the roads, and left it settin’ there right on the heater-piece.  Jacobs told afterward that he kind of disliked to do it, but he thought as long as their minds were set, he might as well have the dollar as anybody.  He said when the house give a slew on a sideling piece in the road, he heard some of the crockery-ware smash down, and a branch of an oak they passed by caught hold of the stove-pipe that come out through one of the walls, and give that a wrench, but he guessed there wa’n’t no great damage.  Joseph may have given ’em some provocation before he went away in the morning,—­I don’t know but he did, and I don’t know as he did,—­but at any rate when he was coming home late in the afternoon he caught sight of his house (some of our folks was right behind, and they saw him), and he stood right up in the sleigh and shook his fist, he was so mad; but afterwards he bu’st out laughin’.  It did look kind of curi’s; it wa’n’t bigger than a front entry, and it set up so pert right there on the heater-piece, as if he was calc’latin’ to farm it.  The folks said Susan Ellen covered up her face in her shawl and began to cry.  I s’pose the pore thing was discouraged.  Joseph was awful mad,—­he was kind of laughing and cryin’ together.  Our folks stopped and asked him if there was anything they could do, and he said no; but Susan Ellen went in to view how things were, and they made up a fire, and then Joe took the horse home, and I guess they had it hot and heavy.  Nobody supposed they’d ever make up ’less there was a funeral in the family to bring ’em together, the fight had gone so far,—­but ’long in the winter old Mr. Ashby, the boys’ father, was taken down with a spell o’ sickness, and there wa’n’t anybody they could get to come and look after the house.  The doctor hunted, and they all hunted, but there didn’t seem to be anybody—­’twa’n’t so thick settled as now, and there was no spare help—­so John had to eat humble pie, and go and ask Susan Ellen if she wouldn’t come back and let by-gones be by-gones.  She was as good-natured a creatur’ as ever stepped, and did the best she knew, and she spoke up as pleasant as could be, and said she’d go right off that afternoon and help ’em through.