A Mighty Thick Fog — 152
A rather loquacious individual was endeavouring to draw an old man into conversation, but hitherto without much success, the old fellow having sufficient discernment to see that his object was to make a little sport for the passengers at his expense. At length says loquacious individual: “I suppose you consider Down East a right smart place; but I guess it would puzzle them to get up quite so thick a fog as we are having here this morning, wouldn’t it?” “Well,” said the old man, “I don’t know about that. I hired one of your Massachusetts chaps to work for me last summer, and one rather foggy mornin’ I sent him down to the meadow to lay a few courses of shingle on a new barn I was finishin’ off. At dinner-time the fellow came up, and, sez he, ‘That’s an almighty long barn of yourn.’ Sez I, ‘Not very long.’ ‘Well,’ sez he, ‘I’ve been to work all this forenoon, and haven’t got one course laid yet.’ ‘Well,’ sez I, ‘you’re a lazy fellow, that’s all I’ve got to say.’ And so after dinner I went down to see what he’d been about, and I’ll be thundered ef he hadn’t shingled more than a hundred foot right out on to the fog.”