XXII. YANKEE HOMESPUN.

“When I lived in Maine,” said Uncle Ezra, “I helped to break up a new piece of ground: we got the wood off in the winter, and early in the spring we begun ploughing on’t. It was so consarned rocky that we had to get forty yoke of oxen to one plough—we did faith—and I held that plough more’n a week; I thought I should die. It e’en a most killed me, I vow. Why, one day I was hold’n, and the plough hit a stump which measured just nine feet and a half through it—hard and sound white oak. The plough split it, and I was going straight through the stump when I happened to think it might snap together again, so I threw my feet out, and had no sooner done this, than it snapped together, taking a smart hold of the seat of my pantaloons. Of course I was tight, but I held on to the plough-handles, and though the teamsters did all they could, that team of eighty oxen could not tear my pantaloons, nor cause me to let go my grip. At last though, after letting the cattle breathe, they gave another strong pull altogether, and the old stump came out about the quickest; it had monstrous long roots, too, let me tell you. My wife made the cloth for them pantaloons, and I havn’t worn any other kind since.”

The only reply made to this was: “I should have thought it would have come hard upon your suspenders.”

“Powerful hard.”