It was easy to see
that the work of the farm was hard for this aging couple; now, for a
place to sleep and a little food, they were able to acquire a strong and
intelligent slave.
In the days that followed, he made himself useful to the farm people; he
fed the chickens and the livestock, milked the cow, worked in the
fields. He slept in a small room at the top of the house, under the
eaves, and ate with the man and woman in the farmhouse kitchen.
It was not long before he picked up a few words which he had heard his
employers using, and related them to the things or acts spoken of. And
he began to notice that these people, in spite of the crudities of their
own life, enjoyed some of the advantages of a fairly complex
civilization. Their implements were not hand-craft products, but showed
machine workmanship. There were two objects hanging on hooks on the
kitchen wall which he was sure were weapons. Both had wooden
shoulder-stocks, and wooden fore-pieces; they had long tubes extending
to the front, and triggers like blasters. One had double tubes mounted
side-by-side, and double triggers; the other had an octagonal tube
mounted over a round tube, and a loop extension on the trigger-guard.
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