David Harum by Edward Noyes Westcott (novels to improve english .TXT) 📕

Parson White, scowlin' fust at one an' then at t'other.

"'Wa'al,' says Am, givin' a kind o' shuffle with his feet, 'I didn't mean _ortter_ exac'ly, but jest as _well_--kinder comp'ny,' he says. 'We hain't neither on us got nobody, an' we thought we might 's well.'

"'What have you got to git married on?' says the dominie after a minute. 'Anythin'?' he says.

"'Wa'al,' says Am, droppin' his head sideways an' borin' into his ear 'ith his middle finger, 'I got the promise mebbe of a job o' work fer a couple o' days next week.' 'H'm'm'm,' says the dominie, lookin' at him. 'Have _you_ got anythin' to git married on?' the dominie says, turnin' to Lize. 'I've got ninety cents comin' to me fer some work I done last week,' she says, wiltin' down onto the sofy an' beginnin' to snivvle. Dick says that at that the dominie turned round an' walked to the other end of the room, an' he c'd see he was dyin' to laugh, but he come back with a straight face.

"'How old air you, Shapless?" he says to Am. 'I'll be fifty-eight or mebbe fifty-nine come next spring,' says Am.

"'How old air _you_?' the dominie says, turnin' to Lize. She wriggled a minute an' says, 'Wa'al, I reckon I'm all o' thirty,' she says."

"All o' thirty!" exclaimed Aunt Polly. "The woman 's most 's old 's I be."

David laughed and went on with, "Wa'al, Dick said at that the dominie give a kind of a choke, an' Dick he bust right out, an' Lize looked at him as if she c'd eat him. Dick said the dominie didn't say anythin' fer a minute or two, an' then he says to Am, 'I suppose you c'n find somebody that'll marry you, but I cert'inly won't, an' what possesses you to commit such a piece o' folly,' he says, 'passes my understandin'. What earthly reason have you fer wantin' to marry? On your own showin',' he says, 'neither one on you 's got a cent o' money or any settled way o' gettin' any.'

"'That's jest the very reason,' says Am, 'that's jest the _very reason_. I hain't got nothin', an' Mis' Annis hain't got nothin', an' we figured that we'd jest better git married an' settle down, an' make a good home fer us both,' an' if that ain't good reasonin'," David concluded, "I don't know what is."

"An' be they actially married?" asked Mrs. Bixbee, still incredulous of anything so preposterous.

"So Dick says," was the reply. "He says Am an' Lize come away f'm the dominie's putty down in the mouth, but 'fore long Amri braced up an' allowed that if he had half a dollar he'd try the squire in the mornin', an' Dick let him have it. I says to Dick, 'You're out fifty cents on that deal,' an' he says, slappin' his leg, 'I don't give a dum,' he says; 'I wouldn't 'a' missed it fer double the money.'"

Here David folded his napkin and put it in the ring, and John finished the cup of clear coffee which Aunt Polly, rather under protest, had given him. Coffee without cream and sugar was incomprehensible to Mrs. Bixbee.


CHAPTER XXV.

Two or three days after Christmas John was sitting in his room in the evening when there came a knock at the door, and to his "Come in" there entered Mr. Harum, who was warmly welcomed and entreated to take the big chair, which, after a cursory survey of the apartment and its furnishings, he did, saying, "Wa'al, I thought I'd come in an' see how Polly'd got you fixed; whether the baskit [casket?] was worthy of the jew'l, as I heard a feller say in a theater once."

"I was never more comfortable in my life," said John. "Mrs. Bixbee has been kindness itself, and even permits me to smoke in the room. Let me give you a cigar."

"Heh! You got putty well 'round Polly, I reckon," said David, looking around the room as he lighted the cigar, "an' I'm glad you're comf'table--I reckon 't is a shade better 'n the Eagle," he remarked, with his characteristic chuckle.

"I should say so," said John emphatically, "and I am more obliged than I can tell you."

"All Polly's doin's," asserted David, holding the end of his cigar critically under his nose. "That's a trifle better article 'n I'm in the habit of smokin'," he remarked.

"I think it's my one extravagance," said John semi-apologetically, "but I don't smoke them exclusively. I am very fond of good tobacco, and--"

"I understand," said David, "an' if I had my life to live over agin, knowin' what I do now, I'd do diff'rent in a number o' ways. I often think," he proceeded, as he took a pull at the cigar and emitted the smoke with a chewing movement of his mouth, "of what Andy Brown used to say. Andy was a curious kind of a customer 't I used to know up to Syrchester. He liked good things, Andy did, an' didn't scrimp himself when they was to be had--that is, when he had the go-an'-fetch-it to git 'em with. He used to say, 'Boys, whenever you git holt of a ten-dollar note you want to git it _into_ ye or _onto_ ye jest 's quick 's you kin. We're here to-day an' gone to-morrer,' he'd say, 'an' the' ain't no pocket in a shroud,' an' I'm dum'd if I don't think sometimes," declared Mr. Harum, "that he wa'n't very fur off neither. 'T any rate," he added with a philosophy unexpected by his hearer, "'s I look back, it ain't the money 't I've spent fer the good times 't I've had 't I regret; it's the good times 't I might 's well 've had an' didn't. I'm inclined to think," he remarked with an air of having given the matter consideration, "that after Adam an' Eve got bounced out of the gard'n they kicked themselves as much as anythin' fer not havin' cleaned up the hull tree while they was about it."

John laughed and said that that was very likely among their regrets.

"Trouble with me was," said David, "that till I was consid'able older 'n you be I had to scratch grav'l like all possessed, an' it's hard work now sometimes to git the idee out of my head but what the money's wuth more 'n the things. I guess," he remarked, looking at the ivory-backed brushes and the various toilet knick-knacks of cut-glass and silver which adorned John's bureau, and indicating them with a motion of his hand, "that up to about now you ben in the habit of figurin' the other way mostly."

"Too much so, perhaps," said John; "but yet, after all, I don't think I am sorry. I wouldn't spend the money for those things now, but I am glad I bought them when I did."

"Jess so, jess so," said David appreciatively. He reached over to the table and laid his cigar on the edge of a book, and, reaching for his hip pocket, produced a silver tobacco box, at which he looked contemplatively for a moment, opening and shutting the lid with a snap.

"There," he said, holding it out on his palm, "I was twenty years makin' up my mind to buy that box, an' to this day I can't bring myself to carry it all the time. Yes, sir, I wanted that box fer twenty years. I don't mean to say that I didn't spend the wuth of it foolishly times over an' agin, but I couldn't never make up my mind to put that amount o' money into that pertic'ler thing. I was alwus figurin' that some day I'd have a silver tobacco box, an' I sometimes think the reason it seemed so extrav'gant, an' I put it off so long, was because I wanted it so much. Now I s'pose you couldn't understand that, could ye?"

"Yes," said John, nodding his head thoughtfully, "I think I can understand it perfectly," and indeed it spoke pages of David's biography.

"Yes, sir," said David, "I never spent a small amount o' money but one other time an' got so much value, only I alwus ben kickin' myself to think I didn't do it sooner."

"Perhaps," suggested John, "you enjoyed it all the more for waiting so long."

"No," said David, "it wa'n't that--I dunno--'t was the feelin' 't I'd got there at last, I guess. Fur's waitin' fer things is concerned, the' is such a thing as waitin' too long. Your appetite 'll change mebbe. I used to think when I was a youngster that if ever I got where I c'd have all the custard pie I c'd eat that'd be all 't I'd ask fer. I used to imagine bein' baked into one an' eatin' my way out. Nowdays the's a good many things I'd sooner have than custard pie, though," he said with a wink, "I gen'ally do eat two pieces jest to please Polly."

John laughed. "What was the other thing?" he asked.

"Other thing I once bought?" queried David. "Oh, yes, it was the fust hoss I ever owned. I give fifteen dollars fer him, an' if he wa'n't a dandy you needn't pay me a cent. Crowbait wa'n't no name fer him. He was stun blind on the off side, an' couldn't see anythin' in pertic'ler on the nigh side--couldn't get nigh 'nough, I reckon--an' had most ev'rythin' wrong with him that c'd ail a hoss; but I thought he was a thoroughbred. I was 'bout seventeen year old then, an' was helpin' lock-tender on the Erie Canal, an' when the' wa'n't no boat goin' through I put in most o' my time cleanin' that hoss. If he got through 'th less 'n six times a day he got off cheap, an' once I got up an' give him a little attention at night. Yes, sir, if I got big money's wuth out o' that box it was mostly a matter of feelin'; but as fur 's that old plugamore of a hoss was concerned, I got it both ways, for I got my fust real start out of his old carkiss."

"Yes?" said John encouragingly.

"Yes, sir," affirmed David, "I cleaned him up, an' fed him up, an' almost got 'im so'st he c'd see enough out of his left eye to shy at a load of hay close by; an' fin'ly traded him off fer another record-breaker an' fifteen dollars to boot."

"Were you as enthusiastic over the next one as the first?" asked John, laughing.

"Wa'al," replied David, relighting his temporarily abandoned cigar against a protest and proffer of a fresh one--"wa'al, he didn't lay holt on my affections to quite the same extent. I done my duty by him, but I didn't set up with him nights. You see," he added with a grin, "I'd got some used to bein' a hoss owner, an' the edge had wore off some." He smoked for a minute or two in silence, with as much apparent relish as if the cigar had not been stale.

"Aren't you going on?" asked John at last

"Wa'al," he replied, pleased with his audience, "I c'd go on, I s'pose, fast enough an' fur enough, but I don't want to tire ye out. I reckon you never had much to do with canals?"

"No," said John, smiling, "I can't say that I have, but I know something about the subject in a general way, and there is no fear of your tiring me out."

"All right," proceeded David. "As I