"
"One o' the things is men, I s'pose," interrupted Mrs. Wiley.
"Men in general, but more partic'larly husbands," assented Old Kennebec;
"howsomever, there's another thing they don't an' can't never take in, an'
that's sport. Steve does river-drivin' as he would horse-racin' or tiger-
shootin' or tight-rope dancin'; an' he always did from a boy. When he was
about twelve to fifteen, he used to help the river-drivers spring and fall,
reg'lar. He could n't do nothin' but shin up an' down the rocks after hammers
an' hatchets an' ropes, but he was turrible pleased with his job.
'Stepanfetchit,' they used to call him them days,--Stepanfetchit Waterman."
"Good name for him yet," came in acid tones from the sink. "He's still
steppin' an' fetchin', only it's Rose that's doin' the drivin' now."
"I'm not driving anybody, that I know of," answered Rose, with heightened
color, but with no loss of her habitual self-command.
"Then, when he graduated from errants," went on the crafty old man, who knew
that when breakfast ceased, churning must begin, "Steve used to get
seventy-five cents a day helpin' clear up the river--if you can call this here
silv'ry streamlet a river.
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