“It is Tom Gladding, whom Perkins hired to make the clearing, one of the best wood-choppers in the country.  It is wonderful with what dexterity he wields an axe.”

As the Judge uttered these words, the two gentlemen emerged from the wood into the open space, denuded of its sylvan honors, by the labors of Gladding.

The clearing (as it is technically termed), was perhaps a couple of acres in extent, in the form of a circle, and surrounded on all sides by trees, only a narrow strip of them, however, being left on the margin of the river, glimpses of which were caught under the branches and the thin undergrowth.  A brook which came out of the wood, ran, glistening in the beams of the setting sun, and singing on its way across the opening to fall into the Wootuppocut.  The felled trees had been mostly cut into pieces of from two to four feet in length, and collected into piles which looked like so many altars scattered over the ground.  Here it was intended they should remain to dry, during the summer, to be ready for a market in the fall.

“So it’s you, Judge and Mr. Armstrong,” exclaimed Gladding as the two came up.  “I guessed as much, that somebody was coming, when I heard Tige bark.  He makes a different sort of a noise when he gits on the scent of a rabbit or squirrel.”

“I dare say, Tiger knows a great deal more than we fancy,” said the Judge.  “Why, Gladding you come on bravely.  I had no idea you had made such destruction.”

“When I once put my hand to the work,” said Tom, laughing, “down they must come, in short metre, if they’re bigger than Goliah.  Me and my axe are old friends, and we’ve got the hang of one another pretty well.  All I have to do, is to say, ‘go it,’ and every tree’s a goner.”

After this little bit of vanity, Tom, as if to prove his ability to make good his boast by deeds, with a few well-directed blows, that seemed to be made without effort, lopped off an enormous limb from the tree he had just cut down.

“I’ve heard tell,” said Tom, continuing his employment of cutting off the limbs, “that the Britishers and the Mounseers don’t use no such axes as ourn.  You’ve been across the Big Pond, and can tell a fellow all about it.”

“It is true, they do not.  The European axe is somewhat differently shaped from your effective weapon.”

“The poor, benighted critturs!” exclaimed Tom, in a tone of commiseration.  “I saw one of them Parleyvoos once, try to handle an axe, and I be darned, if he didn’t come nigh cutting off the great toe of his right foot.  If he hadn’t been as weak as Taunton water—­that, folks say, can’t run down hill—­as all them outlandish furriners is, and had on, to boot, regular stout cowhiders, I do believe he’d never had the chance to have the gout in one toe, anyhow.  Why, I’d as soon trust a monkey with a coal of fire, in a powder-house, as one of them chaps with an axe.”

“We have the best axes, and the most skillful woodmen in the world,” said the Judge, not unwilling to humor the harmless conceit of the wood-chopper.