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"Dat's what I mean, Mistah Swift. Why, it was all right. I mended it so dat de break wouldn't show, an' it would sharpen things if yo' run it slow. But dis yeah lawn-moah won't wuk slow ner fast." "I guess it was an even exchange, then," went on Tom. "You didn't get bitten any worse than the other fellow did."
Yo' see, I done traded mah ole grindstone off for dis yeah lawn-moah, an' I got stuck." "What, that old grindstone that was broken in two, and that you fastened together with concrete?" asked Tom, for he had seen the outfit with which Eradicate, in spare times between cleaning and whitewashing, had gone about the country, sharpening knives and scissors. "You don't mean that old, broken one?"
Now me an' Boomerang has to eat, no mattah ef he is contrary, so I had t' look fo' some new wuk. I traded dat lawn-moah off fo' a cross-cut saw, but dat was such hard wuk dat I gib it up. Den I got a chance to buy dis yeah outfit cheap, an' I bought it."
I'se been swindled, dat's what I has." "Swindled? How?" "Well, it's dis-a-way. Yo' see dis yeah lawn-moah?" "Yes; it doesn't seem to work," and Tom glanced critically at it. As Eradicate pushed it slowly to and fro, the blades did not revolve, and the wheels slipped along on the grass. "No, sah, it doan't work, an' dat's how I've been swindled, Mistah Swift.
This mower would work backwards, if that were possible." "Am dat so, Mistah Swift?" "That's it. All I have to do is to take off the wheels and reverse the pawl." "I I didn't know mah lawn-moah was named Paul," said the colored man. "Is it writ on it anywhere?" "No, it's not the kind of Paul you mean," said Tom with a laugh. "It's spelled differently.
"Yo' doan't s'pose yo' kin fix dis yeah moah so's I kin use it, does yo', Mistah Swift?" asked Eradicate, not bothering to go into the ethics of the matter. "I reckon now with summah comin' on I kin make mo' with a lawn-moah than I kin with a grindstone dat is, ef I kin git it to wuk. I jest got it a while ago an' decided to try it, but it won't cut no grass."
"The last time I saw you, you were preparing to go into the grass-cutting business," went on Tom. "Yais, sah! Dat's right. So I was. Yo' has got a memory, yo' suah has. But it am dis yeah way. Grass ain't growin' quick enough, an' so I traded off dat lawn-moah an' bought dis yeah mill. But now it won't go, an' I suah am in trouble," and once more Eradicate Sampson looked indignantly at Boomerang.
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