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 hardly ever went into the room except to go to bed. She liked her father's company and her father's occupations better than those of her sisters. She stood at his side and watched him as he nailed the bright new shoes with the bright new horseshoe nails onto the hoofs of Tom and Bob. When he said, "Whoa!" she said "Whoa!" with a faithful echo of his tone and inflection. She loved to hear the cheerful strokes of the hammer and watch the sparks fly from the piece of old railroad iron which Bill used as an anvil. When he stretched a piece of wire fence she was there to hand him the wire stretchers, the pliers, the hammer, the staples. And whenever he mended spots in the old rail fence she caused Bill much inconvenience by insisting on lifting one end of each rail. She liked to watch and help him when he had a job of carpentry to do, a bench to make, or a shelf or some new chicken coops for the spring broods. She ran and fetched the hammer, the nails, the brace, and bit. She held the ends of boards while he nailed them, dragged up more boards; and all the time she watched eagerly. As he worked Bill chewed tobacco and whistled and now and then broke out into a rather tuneless attempt at a song:

Judith pirouetting about, would sing the song after him, but with the correct time and tune.

"Seems like you c'n beat yer dad at singin', Judy," Bill would say proudly. "I never was one that could hang onto a tune. After a bit, somehaow, it'd allus git away from me. Hand me them there pinchers—the little uns with the shiny ends onto 'em."

Judith liked to work around the mules and was soon entrusted with the task of leading them to water and pitching hay into their manger. In the stable she would get down the curry brush and comb from the beam where Bill kept them and curry