And I
held out my hand to her, but she didn't take it, though I see a smile
playin' over her face. The fact is, it is just as well she didn't, for
I intended to draw her--. Well, it ain't no matter what I intended to
do; and therefore it ain't no use to confess what I didn't realise.
"Truth is," said I, lingering a bit, not to look disappointed, "a
farmer ought to know what to raise, how to live, and where to save. If
two things are equally good, and one costs money, and the other only a
little trouble, the choice ain't difficult, is it?"
"Mr Slick," sais she, "are you a farmer?"
"I was bred and born on a farm, dear," sais I, "and on one, too, where
nothin' was ever wasted, and no time ever lost; where there was a
place for everything, and everything was in its place. Where peace and
plenty reigned; and where there was a shot in the locker for the
minister, and another for the poor, and--"
"You don't mean to say that you considered them game, did you?" said
she, looking archly.
"Thank you," sais I. "But now you are making game of me, Miss; that's
not a bad hit of yours though; and a shot for the bank, at the eend of
the year. I know all about farm things, from raisin' Indian corn down
to managing a pea-hen; the most difficult thing to regulate next to a
wife, I ever see."
"Do you live on a farm now?"
"Yes, when I am to home," sais I, "I have returned again to the old
occupation and the old place; for, after all, what's bred in the bone,
you know, is hard to get out of the flesh, and home is home, however
homely.
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