CHAPTER VI.
A TALE OF THE MEXICAN WAR.
Mr. Hardy was rather surprised at Seth Harper, the Yankee, having
remained so long in his service, as the man had plainly stated,
when first engaged, that he thought it likely that he should not
fix himself, as he expressed it, for many weeks, However, he stayed
on, and had evidently taken a fancy to the boys; and was still more
interested in the girls, whose talk and ways must have been strange
and very pleasant to him after so many years' wandering as a
solitary man. He was generally a man of few words, using signs
where signs would suffice, and making his answers, when obliged to
speak, as brief as possible. This habit of taciturnity was no doubt
acquired from a long life passed either alone or amid dangers where
an unnecessary sound might have cost him his life. To the young
people, however, he would relax from his habitual rule of silence.
Of an evening, when work was over, they would go down to the bench
he had erected outside his hut, and would ask him to tell them
tales of his Indian experiences. Upon one of these occasions
Charley said to him: "But of all the near escapes that you have
had, which was the most hazardous you ever had? which do you
consider was the narrowest touch you ever had of being killed?"
Seth considered for some time in silence, turned his plug of
tobacco in his mouth, expectorated two or three times, as was his
custom when thinking, and then said, "That's not altogether an easy
question to answer.
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