took care, by the way he divided them, that none of them should have any reason to complain.  From the time they wint to live upon their farms, Tom was up early and down late, improving it—­paid attention to nothing else; axed every man’s opinion as to what crop would be best for such a spot, and to tell the truth he found very few, if any, able to instruct him so well as his own brother Larry.  He was no such laborer, however, as Larry—­but what he was short in, he made up by perseverance and care.

“In the coorse ’of two or three years you would hardly bleeve how he got on, and his wife was every bit aquil to him.  She spun the yarn for the linen that made their own shirts and sheeting, bought an odd pound of wool-now and then when she could get it chape, and put it past till she had a stone or so; she would then sit down and spin it—­get it wove and dressed; and before one would know anything about it she’d have the making of a dacent comfortable coat for Tom, and a bit of heather-colored drugget for her own gown, along with a piece of striped red and blue for a petticoat—­all at very little cost.

“It wasn’t so with Larry.  In the beginning, to be sure, while the fit was on him, he did very well; only that he would go off an odd time to a dance; or of a market or fair day, when he’d see the people pass by, dressed in their best clothes, he’d take the notion, and sot off with himself, telling Sally that he’d just go in for a couple of hours, to see how the markets were going on.

“It’s always an unpleasant thing for a body to go to a fair or market without anything in their pocket; accordingly, if money was in the house, he’d take some of it with him, for fraid that any friend or acquaintance might thrate him; and then it would be a poor, mane-spirited thing, he would say, to take another man’s thrate, without giving one for it.  He’d seldom have any notion, though, of breaking in upon or spinding the money, he only brought it to keep his pocket, jist to prevent him from being shamed, should he meet a friend.

“In the manetime, Sally, in his absence, would find herself lonely, and as she hadn’t, may be, seen her aunt for some time before, she’d lock the door, and go over to spind a while with her; or take a trip as far as her ould mistress’s place to see the family.  Many a thing people will have to say to one another about the pleasant times they had together, or several other subjects best known to themselves, of coorse.  Larry would come home in her absence, and finding the door locked, would slip down to Squire Dickson’s, to chat with the steward or gardener, or with the sarvints in the kitchen.