1 86 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



few, but he wasn't much good. You couldn't tell 

 him anything. He had too much courage." 



" Too much ! " I exclaimed. " But one can't 

 have." 



" Well, he always got his answer back, and was 

 looking to teach me to work the land all over again, 

 I guess." 



" Ah ! We call it cheek," I explained. 



" That's it. He was well fixed with cheek all 

 right. I'll milk the cattle for you. Guess it may 

 be late before you get back," he said magnani- 

 mously. 



I offered Mr. Rossiter twenty dollars for a month's 

 work. I told him he must milk, and that I should 

 probably want him to do house painting and a little 

 carpentering, but that his principal duty would be 

 the monotonous work of stoning the land in front 

 of the breaking plough ; but that Roddy McMahon 

 was good-natured, and knew the land and its 

 implements from A to Z, and, I felt sure, would 

 teach him anything he wanted to learn. 



Afterwards I heard that he had said, " If I am 

 expected to do carpenter's work, why of course I 

 shall want carpenter's money." I think he was not 

 at all anxious to move away from the hospitality of 

 the Creegans, and that it was a very special effort 

 on the part of Mrs. Creegan that induced the move. 

 However, I carried him off in triumph, and to me 

 he was courtesy itself, so that I didn't even resent 

 his rather blatant note of self-confidence. 



" I can do anything when I make up my mind," 

 he said. " Don't trouble about that. I am not 

 one of those who talk a great deal about what they 

 can do. But I have no doubt when I have been a 



