Note 23 — LETTERS TO YOUNG PEOPLE

While Austin was in Vailima many little duties about the plantation fell to his share, so that he was often called the “overseer”; and small as he was, he sometimes took charge of a couple of big men, and went into town with the pack-horses. It was not all play, either, for he had to see that the barrels and boxes did not chafe the horses’ backs, and that they were not allowed to come home too fast up the steep road.—[L.O.]