jack’s house. 
99 
painful. A yard had been fenced in about 
the door and planted with shrubs; but many 
of the boards were gone from the fence. 
The sow wandered in and out at her own 
will; and nothing seemed to have survived 
but a hardy cinnamon rose, and a lilac, which 
at present served as clothes-horses to sus¬ 
tain various wet garments of doubtful as¬ 
pect, and some stockings so ragged that 
it w^as a wonder how the owners ever found 
the right way into them. A vegetable-patch 
near at hand fared rather better; but even 
this was weedy and ill arranged, and not 
nearly so productive as it might have been 
under better management. 
Mr. Short did not own the place: if he 
had, perhaps he would have taken better 
care of it. He “tended” the saw-mill for 
Mr. Winston, to whom it belonged, and 
who had made many efforts to improve the 
condition of his tenants or induce them to 
improve it for themselves. Short was a 
good workman under active superintend¬ 
ence : he was perfectly honest and gene¬ 
rally sober, and, in a rough way, fond of his 
children; but it seemed as though all his 
energies were expended upon his landlord’s 
