Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/66

 they had been filing a saw. Though painfully aware of the fact, Mary innocently exclaimed,

“Filing a saw! I didn’t suppose either of you knew how.”

“Know how to file a saw!” exclaimed Bert. “Why, I’ve filed ’em, I may say, from infancy up.”

“Yes,” chimed in his shameless associate, “and if I had a dollar for every one I’ve filed, I’d ask nothing of J. Pierpont Morgan.” Scornful silence on the part of their auditors.

Soon after dinner there came a rapping at the kitchen door, and there we found the unblushing prevaricators, on their shoulders a saw about four yards long, one carrying an axe, the other an old tin pail half full of iron wedges.

“Whither away?” was asked.

“We are going, ladies, to hold ‘communion with Nature in her visible forms.’”

“Oh!”

“Yes, ma’am, we are going to draw near to Nature’s heart, as it were, and rive out a chunk of it to satisfy your insatiate cravings.”

We were then told that if we would glance up Mount Nebo about twilight we would behold a novel and interesting scene.

“Suppose neither of you ever happened to see a tree snaked out of the woods, did you?”

“I’ve seen ’em from infancy up!”