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"My duty," said Kent. "Calc'late to do your duty?" "Always done so." "Comin' to see you do it," said Scattergood. He paused. "Next mornin' we'll fix up the note. G'-by, Kent."
It seemed to be the lot of poor Mrs. Payson to suffer fright or disaster whenever she encountered Pomp, and this memorable afternoon was to make no exception to the rule. "Cynthy Ann," she said to her daughter, in the afternoon, "I guess I'll go and spend the arternoon with Mis' Forbes. I hain't been to see her for nigh a month, and I calc'late she'll be glad to see me.
"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?" Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head. "Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?" "Got 'em in the city," said Ovid. "I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured special fer you?" "Best tailor there was," said Ovid.
"Some," said Scattergood. "Some." "We are starting to build our mill. It will be the largest in America, with the most modern machinery. Now we're looking about for somebody to supply us spruce cut to the proper length for pulpwood. You own considerable spruce, do you not?" "Calc'late to have title to a tree or two." "Good.
Wall, she ain't goin' to need so derned much. You tell Mr. Picardy I've come a long ways to find a home fer Mary and me; a long road and a hard road. I can't go no further without I swim fer it, and that I don't calc'late on doin'. I ain't the kind to hog more land 'n what I can use not mentionin' no names; but I calc'late on havin' what I need, if I can get it honest.
"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein' crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any other woman you ever see.
Ya-as.... Wills kin be busted, but this here docyment I calc'late it would take mighty powerful hammerin' to knock it apart." "And, Mary," said Bob, "if I were you I shouldn't mention the finding of it." "Not to a soul," said Scattergood. "We'll take it mighty soft and spry and shet it up in Bob's safe.... Anybody know the combination to it besides you, Bob?" "Nobody but you, Mr. Baines."
To be sure, it kin be put in splints and mended up ag'in, but maybe you'll go limpy or knit crooked so's nothin' kin keep the busted place from showin'. Bearin' that in mind, if I was you, I wouldn't be too careless about scramblin' up into places where you was apt to git a fall.... I calc'late, Sairy, that it's better to miss the view than to fall out of the tree...."
The man what did that was a gentleman too so they said; tho' for my part I don't know wot a gentleman is no more do I b'lieve there ain't sich a thing; but if there be, an' it means anything good, I calc'late that that man wos a gentleman, for w'en he grew old he took his old squaw to Canada with him, 'spite the larfin' o' his comrades, who said he'd have to sot up a wigwam for her in his garden.
"A dam across that bottle neck," he said to himself, "will flood that flat. Reg'lar reservoy. Millpond. Git a twenty-foot fall here easy, maybe more. Calc'late that'll run about any mill folks'll want to build.
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