Page:The Land Claim.pdf/14

Rh shanty of rough boards, furnished with two rude bedsteads, as many plank benches, a cooking stove, pine table, and a few tin dishes. It was agreed among them that, "for short," each one was to be called by his professional title, or an abbreviation thereof. Thus Doc, Squire, Ed, and Flag, served to denote the personality of gentlemen whose real and complete names will transpire in due season. Over the soubriquet of Flag, there had at first been considerable discussion, one contending for Comp., abbreviation of compass; another for Tent, and a third for Chain; but the surveyor himself carried the day, and was voted unanimously to be Flag, at his own suggestion.

"I say, fellows, this is jolly, isn't it?" remarked Squire, kicking up his heels like a four-year-old, as he lay at length on one of the beds.

"Jolly!" reiterated Doc; "I should think so, for you fellows, kicking up your heels on the beds! But this is my fourth day, as cook, and my back aches like blazes."

"Pooh, you talk like a woman," says Flag, in a tone intended to be very disdainful of the weakness.

"I only wish I could hear a real woman talking, in this shanty," answers Doc, mournfully. "Confound it! I shall never learn to pour the water off the potatoes without scalding my hands with the steam."

"Why don't you take the potatoes out of the water with a fork?" asks Flag, with provoking coolness.

"Because that's not the way it's done by women cooks," was the reply, in rather a surly tone. "That's the way you did, I suppose, when you was cook, and that accounts for their not being fit to eat."

"Without doubt," put in the Squire, soberly; "women are among the most useful of the domestic animals. Now, a man may keep house very comfortably without a dog or a cat, a horse or a cow; but without a woman, something is pretty apt to go wrong. I shouldn't wonder, if we had a woman in the house, if she could put to flight these pilfering mice that are destroying every thing. There was Mrs. Smith that I boarded with when I studied law—she never had a cat about the house nor a mouse either. I suppose she must have caught them herself. Then she didn't keep a cow, and yet we had plenty of milk—she said it was milk—for our coffee. There wasn't a dog nor a horse about the place either, that I knew of; and we all got along comfortably. I always thought it was her management. In fact, I suppose a woman to be an epitome of the domestic universe!"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself—talking so disrespectfully of the sex," said Doc, indignantly. "Your mother was a woman, I suppose?"

"Guess so—couldn't swear to it, though," replied the Squire.

"Well, supper's ready. I hope this coffee is hot enough to burn your tongue, and learn it better manners."