It would be all the same, I guess, if I didn't say
so. You'd come after dark and help yourself."
Sam pocketed the insult, though the weight of it was heavy. So was that
of the bits of board he gathered; but he knew that such thin wood
burned rapidly, so he took a load that made him stagger. As he entered
the yard behind his house, he saw, through the dusk which was beginning
to gather, a man rapidly tossing cord-wood from a wagon to a large pile
which already lay on the ground.
"My friend," gasped Sam, dropping his own load and panting from his
exertion, "I guess--you've made a--mistake. I ain't ordered a load of
wood from nobody. Guess you've come to the wrong house."
"Guess not," replied the man, who was the farmer that had freed his
mind at the railway station during the afternoon.
"This is Sam Kimper's," explained the cobbler.
"Just where I was told to come," said the farmer, tossing out the last
sticks and stretching his arms to rest upon them.
"Who was it told you to bring it?" asked the resident.
The farmer stooped and took a large package from the front of the wagon
and threw it on the ground; then he threw another.
"Won't you tell me who sent it?" Sam asked again.
The farmer turned his head and shouted,--
"God Almighty, if you must know; and He told me to bring that bag of
flour and shoulder of bacon, too.
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