It seemed such a shame to let them go to waste that the matter was on all our minds.

At the breakfast table one morning Ellen remarked that we might use the haymaker for drying apples if we only had some one to pare and slice them.
"But I cannot think of any one," she added hastily, fearful lest she be asked to do the work evenings.
"Nor can I," Theodora added with equal haste, "unless some of those paupers at the town farm could be set about it." "Poor paupers!" Addison exclaimed, laughing.

"Too bad!" "Lazy things, I say!" grandmother exclaimed.

"There's seventeen on the farm, and eight of them are abundantly able to work and earn their keep." "Yes, if they only had the wit," the old Squire said; he was one of the selectmen that year, and he felt much solicitude for the town poor.
"Perhaps they've wit enough to pare apples," Theodora remarked hopefully.
"Maybe," the old Squire said in doubt.

"So far as they are able they ought to work, just as those who have to support them must work." The old Squire, after consulting with the two other selectmen, finally offered five of the paupers fifty cents a day and their board if they would come to our place and dry apples.