For
dress he wore a much patched pair of woolen trousers and a "hickory"
shirt of faded blue, with rough top boots and a dilapidated straw hat
that looked as if it might have outlived several generations.
As Ethel greeted the man she looked him over carefully and sighed at the
result; for certainly, as far as personal appearances went, he seemed as
unlikely a person to serve a "nabob" as could well be imagined. But the
girl knew Thomas' good points, and remembering them, took courage.
"If the worst comes," she said, brightly, "you are both to come to us to
live. I've arranged all that with grandmother, you know. But I'm not
much afraid of your being obliged to leave here. From all accounts this
Mr. Merrick is a generous and free-hearted man, and I've discovered that
strangers are not likely to be fearsome when you come to know them. The
unknown always makes us childishly nervous, you see, and then we forget
it's wrong to borrow trouble."
"True's gospil," said Old Hucks. "To know my Nora is to love her.
Ev'body loves Nora. An' the good Lord He's took'n care o' us so long, it
seems like a sort o' sacrelidge to feel that all thet pretty furn'ture
in the barn spells on'y poor-house to us. Eh, Ethel?"
McNutt arrived just then, with big Ned Long, Lon Taft the carpenter, and
Widow Clark, that lady having agreed to "help with the cleanin'.
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