“Or at ditch-digging,” added the young man.  “No; my profession is to get people into hot water and then make them pay roundly to get out.  I’m a lawyer.  Times have changed in cities.  It’s there you’ll find young men with muscle, if anywhere.  Put your hand here, sir, and you’ll know whether Miss Banning made a bad bargain in hiring me for the day.”

“Why!” exclaimed the astonished farmer, “you have the muscle of a blacksmith.”

“Yes, sir; I could learn that trade in about a month.”

“You don’t grow muscle like that in a law-office?”

“No, indeed; nothing but bills grow there.  A good fashion, if not abused, has come in vogue, and young men develop their bodies as well as brains.  I belong to an athletic club in town, and could take to pugilism should everything else fail.”

“Is there any prospect of your coming to that?” Sue asked mischievously.

“If we were out walking, and two or three rough fellows gave you impudence—­” He nodded significantly.

“What could you do against two or three?  They’d close on you.”

“A fellow taught to use his hands doesn’t let men close on him.”

“Yah, yah! reckon not,” chuckled Hiram.  One of the farm household had evidently been won.

“It seems to me,” remarked smiling Sue, “that I saw several young men in town who appeared scarcely equal to carrying their canes.”

“Dudes?”

“That’s what they are called, I believe.”

“They are not men.  They are neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but the beginning of the great downward curve of evolution.  Men came up from monkeys, it’s said, you know, but science is in despair over the final down-comes of dudes.  They may evolute into grasshoppers.”

The farmer was shaken with mirth, and Sue could not help seeing that he was having a good time.  She, however, felt that no tranquilly exciting day was before her, as she had anticipated.  What wouldn’t that muscular fellow attempt before night?  He possessed a sort of vim and cheerful audacity which made her tremble, “He is too confident,” she thought, “and needs a lesson.  All this digging is like that of soldiers who soon mean to drop their shovels.  I don’t propose to be carried by storm just when he gets ready.  He can have his lark, and that’s all to-day.  I want a good deal of time to think before I surrender to him or any one else.”

During the remainder of the forenoon these musings prevented the slightest trace of sentimentality from appearing in her face or words.  She had to admit mentally that Minturn gave her no occasion for defensive tactics.  He attended as strictly to business as did Hiram, and she was allowed to come and go at will.  At first she merely ventured to the house, to “help mother,” as she said.  Then, with growing confidence, she went here and there to select sites for trees; but Minturn dug on no longer “like a steam-engine,” yet in an easy, steady, effective way that was a continual surprise to the farmer.