David Harum quotes

“Then the’ wa’n’t nothin’ the matter with him, after all,” commented Mrs. Bixbee in rather a disappointed tone.

“The meanest thing top of the earth was the matter with him,” declared David

, “but I didn’t find it out till the next afternoon, an’ then I found it out good. I hitched him to the open buggy an’ went ’round by the East road, ’cause that ain’t so much travelled.

“Wa’al, what’s the deakin kickin’ about, then?” asked Aunt Polly. “You’re jes’ sayin’ you broke him of balkin’.”

“Wa’al,” said David slowly, “some hosses will balk with some folks an’ not with others. You can’t most alwus gen’ally tell.”

“Didn’t the deakin have a chance to try him?”

“Didn’t ye dast to trust the deakin?” asked Mrs. Bixbee.

“Polly,” said David, “the’s a number of holes in a ten-foot ladder.”

Mrs. Bixbee seemed to understand this rather ambiguous rejoinder.

“I have never met anyone exactly like Mr. Timson, I think,” said our friend with a slight laugh.

“Fortunitly them kind is rare,” observed Mr. Harum dryly

, rising and going to his desk, from a drawer of which he produced a couple of cigars, one of which he proffered to John, who, for the first time in his life, during the next half hour regretted that he was a smoker.

… “an’ I could ’a’ got putty near what I was askin’ fer him last week, an’ putty near what he was wuth, an’ I’ve noticed that most gen’ally alwus when I let a good offer go like that, some cussed thing happens to the hoss.

It ain’t a bad idee, in the hoss bus’nis anyway, to be willin’ to let the other feller make a dollar once ’n a while.

”

She c’d say things that ’d jest raise a blister like pizen ivy. I s’pose I was about as ord’nary, no-account-lookin’, redheaded, freckled little cuss as you ever see, an’ slinkin’ in my manners.

The air of our home circle wa’n’t cal’lated to raise heroes in.

“I got three four years’ schoolin’, an’ made out to read an’ write an’ cipher up to long division ’fore I got through, but after I got to be six year old, school or no school, I had to work reg’lar at anything I had …

My sister Polly was ’sponsible more ’n anyone, I guess, an’ the only one o’ the whole lot that ever gin me a decent word.

Small farmin’ ain’t cal’lated to fetch out the best traits of human nature⁠—an’ keep ’em out⁠—an’ it seems to me sometimes that when the old man wa’n’t cuffin’ my ears he was lickin’ me with a rawhide or a strap.

Fur ’s that was concerned, all his boys used to ketch it putty reg’lar till they got too big. One on ’em up an’ licked him one night, an’ lit out next day.

… ’n they kept out, an’ a couple pairs of woolen socks that was putty much all darns, was expected to see me through the winter, an’ I went barefoot f’m the time the snow was off the ground till it flew agin in the fall.

The’ wa’n’t but two seasons o’ the year with me⁠—them of chilblains an’ stun-bruises.

”

“It’s amazin’ how much trouble an’ sorrer the’ is in the world, an’ how soon it begins,” she remarked, moving a little to avoid the sunlight. “

I hain’t never ben able to reconcile how many good things the’ be, an’ how little most on us gits o’ them.

I hain’t ben to meetin’ fer a long spell ’cause I hain’t had no fit clo’es, but I remember most of the preachin’ I’ve set under either dwelt on the wrath to come, or else on the Lord’s doin’ all things well, an’ providin’.

‘I ain’t fit to,’ I says, ready to cry—an’—wa’al, he jest laughed, an’ says, ‘Nonsense,’ he says, ‘come along.

A man needn’t be ashamed of his workin’ clo’es,

’ he says, an’ I’m dum’d if he didn’t take holt of my hand, an’ in we went that way together.”

“I’d had the most enjoy’ble day, I might say the only enjoy’ble day, ’t I’d ever had in my hull life, an’ I hain’t never fergot it. I got over the lickin’ in course of time, but

I’ve ben enjoyin’ that cirkis fer forty year.

The’ wa’n’t but one thing to hender, an’ that’s this, that I hain’t never ben able to remember—an’ to this day I lay awake nights tryin’ to—that I said ‘Thank ye’ to Billy P., an’ I never seen him after that day.”

“That’s the way it looks to me,” said Mrs. Bixbee, “but David likes to think t’other.

He meant to be awful mean, an’ he was⁠—as mean as he could⁠—but the fact is, he didn’t reelly know how.

My sakes! Cynthy (looking at the clock), I’ll hev to excuse myself fer a spell. Ef you want to do any fixin’ up ’fore dinner, jest step into my bedroom.

“All right,” said David. “

Don’t care means a little o’ both.

I alwus know what to give Polly—piece o’ the second jint an’ the last-thing-over-the-fence. Nice ’n rich fer scraggly folks,” he remarked. “How fer you, John?—little o’ both, eh?” and he heaped the plate till our friend begged him to keep something for himself.

“No,” he said, to John’s proffer of the box, “this’ll last quite a spell yet. Wa’al,” he resumed after a moment, in reply to John’s remark, “viewin’ it all by itself, it was a hard life.

A thing is hard though, I reckon, because it’s harder ’n somethin’ else, or you think so. Most things go by comparin’.

I s’pose if the gen’ral run of trotters never got better ’n three ’n a half that a hoss that c’d do it in three ’d be fast, but we don’t call ’em so nowdays.

Then, too, he said to himself, “Of what avail would it be? Only to keep alive a longing for the impossible.” No, he would forget it all.

Men had died and worms had eaten them, but not for love.

Many men lived all their lives without it and got on very well too, he was aware. Perhaps some day, when he had become thoroughly affiliated and localized, he would wed a village maiden, and rear a Freeland County brood.

“Jes’ so,” observed her brother; “

I’ve gen’ally noticed that folks who was of your way o’ thinkin’ never made no mistakes

, an’ ’Lizer ’s a very consistent believer;” whereupon he laughed in a way to arouse both Mrs. Bixbee’s curiosity and suspicion.

“Oh, yes it does,” said Miss Clara, laughing.

“There are all degrees: Charming, very charming, most charming, and perfectly charming.”

“To be sure,” replied the other. “And there is the descending scale: Perfectly charming, most charming, very charming, charming, very pleasant, quite nice, and, oh, yes, well enough. Of course you have asked him to call.”

“I should like to hear them,” said Miss Clara, laughing, “and I should particularly like to hear your favorite, the one which ends with the Amen—the very large A—men.”

“Seventeen hands,” declared Mr. Harum.

“Must you be goin’? Wa’al, glad to have seen ye. Polly’s hopin’ you’ll come an’ see her putty soon.”

an’ after that Smith never peeped once. After the meetin’ was over, the moderator says to Jones, “Brother Jones,” he says, “what did you say to Brother Smith tonight that shut him up so quick?”

“I ast him fer a dollar for For’n Missions,”

says Brother Jones, ‘an’, wa’al,’ I says to Tenaker, ‘that’s what I done to Staples.’ ”