The first I seed o' Bills was about two weeks after he got here. The
Settlement wasn't nothin' but a baby in them days, far I mind 'at old
Ezry Sturgiss had jist got his saw and griss-mill a-goin', and Bills
had come along and claimed to know all about millin', and got a job
with him; and millers in them times was wanted worse'n congerss-men,
and I reckon got better wages; far afore Ezry built, ther wasn't a
dust o' meal er flour to be had short o' the White Water, better'n
sixty mild from here, the way we had to fetch it. And they used to
come to Ezry's far ther grindin' as far as that; and one feller I
knowed to come from what used to be the old South Fork, over eighty
mild from here, and in the wettest, rainyest weather; and mud! _Law!_
Well, this-here Bills was a-workin' far Ezry at the time--part the
time a-grindin', and part the time a-lookin' after the sawin', and
gittin' out timber and the like. Bills was a queer-lookin' feller,
shore! About as tall a build man as Tom Carter--but of course you
don't know nothin' o' Tom Carter. A great big hulk of a feller, Tom
was; and as far back as Fifty-eight used to make his brags that he
could cut and put up his seven cord a day.
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