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Another large, red, two-story, sharp-roofed house, no wise trim and neat, and comfortable looking and attractive, stood within hailing distance on the north side of the poor-house. This, with its wide drive-way to the yard and sheds, and huge barn in the rear, was the dwelling-house of Captain Isaac Bunce, owner of the poor-house and keeper of the paupers. Separated from the poor-house by a high board fence, yet communicating with it through a gate, it represented property, bustling activity, and independence. In the wide yard around the house there were sheds -- a long, low line of dark sheds for housing wood, for sheltering wagons and carts, for storing ploughs, and barrows, and scrapers, and all the utensils and apparatus of the farm. And the yard was filled with wood, chips, old fence rails, broken ploughs, carts, and other instruments, utensils, and implements of work-life, gone somewhat or totally to decay. And there were sheds around the barn, flanking it on this side and that, where the uneasy, wandering cattle lounged, going in and coming out as they listed, or the stiffer horn of some old ox made moving less a choice than a necessity. And here too were the poultry and the calves, and the sheep and lambs.

In this broad yard, the paupers, if any were active and able-bodied, were "held to service," some in making, others in gathering chips, others still in sentinel duty watching the romping pigs and calves. Of the females, work of various kinds was oft demanded in the house, mopping, scrubbing, washing clothes, making beds, sweeping, etc. Half of every sunny day there might be seen here and there crouched down on the warm side of a shed, or a wood-pile, among loose barrels, or cart-wheels, or perchance stretched out on a pile of boards, or rails, some feeble, aged person, almost done with earth, yet yearning for its warmth and sunshine; or sad and melancholy and drooping human forms passed here and there on the grounds -- high and hilarious shoutings, voices in merry story tellings and railleries, laughter that maketh glad the hearts from the large dwelling where were busy women, or jovial men, reposing from work or cheerful from wine, falling on their ears, not as shoutings and voices and laughter of encouragement, not as from circles of loving children, not as sympathetic with sorrow and friendlessness, nor as attracting to its circle the lonely and broken-hearted -- not as these, oh! no, no.

Men and women shouted there over their own free jests, in forgetfulness of the sorrow that was weighing down the poor.

For five successive years Captain Bunce had kept the poor of Crampton; it seeming to be the opinion of a majority of the town that his terms were easier for them than any that others proposed, and his accommodations, on the whole, the best for the poor that could be had. It is true that some of the citizens of Crampton were disinclined to go with the majority, and urged a different mode and system of supporting the poor. They were, however, a small minority, and by most regarded and treated derisively, as fanatics or squanderers of the town treasury, or possibly with patronizing civility. Other individuals there were who had a strong desire for a portion of the "loaves and fishes" -- i.e., to share the spoils in the disposition of the poor at a cash valuation. Hence they were competitors for the job, risk, or duty, with the Captain and with one another.

But party politics, diplomatic shrewdness, lobby button-pulling, and the wishes of the majority all favored the Captain, and his bids prevailed.

In person, Captain Bunce was a large, florid-looking man, nearly six feet in height, with broad shoulders, long, stout arms, and hard hands. He was careless of dress, rough and ready in his manners. He was not usually and wantonly profane, but easily and often fell into the practice. In his orders, he was rather loud and dictatorial; swaggering in his talk; always making a good story better by recapitulation; professing great familiarity with the details of all sorts of business; a knowledge of the value of property, real and personal; a positive love of hard work for work's sake; and an acquaintance with human nature that enabled him to draw out of every body around him more work than any other man under the same circumstances.

Notwithstanding he seemed always well supplied with funds, he was one of a class ever in debt. His bills against the town had been sometimes as high as eight hundred dollars a year; but competition is the ruin of high prices, and it had run the Captain down to six hundred -- an income still that his rivals deemed almost the same as clear gain, and that he also did not underrate in his own bosom's thoughts. None knew better than he that the ready first cost of provisions for the paupers simply, was very trifling. It was absolutely and scripturally necessary that the Captain should provide for his own household; and as this was rather large, a little over -- a very little extra supply of provisions -- would make an abundance of fare "for all the poor folks that Crampton ever got together" -- i.e., from the over-plus, ibid the leavings. Hence, from a certain point of necessary charges any way, (the Captain figured it,) the paupers' food would be about the same to him in the actual deficit of his ways and means, as the true value of two decimals themselves in a fractional place where the units and tens were wanting, and the whole representing -- a cipher!