“It was this way,” Silas went on. “Seth allers was purty slick at han’lin’ tools, an’ Zenas Jordan was foreman of the shop, an’ he offered Seth a place there at twelve dollars a week, which was purty good pay an’ more ’n Seth could make outside, ’thout it was hayin’-time. I met him on his way to work fust mornin’. ‘Well, luck’s with you this time, Seth,’ says I. ‘Sh!’ says he. ‘Don’t say thet, or I’ll lose my job sure. It’s jes better ’n nothin’, thet’s all. Don’t call it good luck’; an’ he laafed an’ went along a-whistlin’. B’ Gosht! ef the blamed ol’ shop didn’t burn daown thet very night, an’, ez ye know, they never rebuilt. Seth he come to me nex’ day, an’ he says, kinder reproachful: ‘You’d orter held yer tongue, Silas. I’d be’n hopin’ thet was a stroke er luck thet hed hit me by mistake, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to whisper its name for fear it’d reckernize me an’ leave me, and you hed to go an’ yell it aout when ye met me.’” And Silas laughed heartily at recollection of the whimsicality.
“Cur’us, ain’t it, what a grudge luck doos hev against some men?” remarked Jed, rubbing his smooth chin meditatively.
Far down the valley I heard the faint whistle of a locomotive.
“Las’ story they tell ’baout Seth ’s this,” Silas said, rising and stretching himself, and then leaning against the wall of the station. “He’s a very good judge o’ poultry, an’, in fac’, he gin’ally judges at the caounty fair every fall. Well, a man daown in Ansony told him he’d pay him ten dollars apiece for a couple of fine thoroughbred Plymouth Rock roosters. Seth knowed a man daown Smithfield way named Jones thet owned some full-blooded stock, but ez he on’y kep’ ’em fer home use he didn’t set a fancy price on ’em, an’ Seth knowed he could git ’em fer seventy-five cents or a dollar apiece. Well, it happened a day or two later he was engaged to do a day’s work fer this man Jones, an’ he went daown there. He see two all-fired fine roosters a-struttin’ raound the place, an’ he cal’lated to buy them; but fer some reason he didn’t say nothin’ ’baout it jes then to Jones, but went to work at choppin’ or sawin’ or whatever it was he was doin’.”
“Said nothin’, did he? Must ha’ sawed wood, then,” interrupted Jed, looking over at me and winking.
“Sure! Well, when it kem time fer dinner he hed got up a good appetite, an’ he was glad to set daown to table, fer Jones is a purty good feeder an’ likes to see people hev enough. Hed stewed chicken fer dinner, an’ Seth says he never enjoyed any so much in his life. After dinner he says, ‘By the way, Jones, what’ll ye take fer those two Plymouth Rock roosters ’t I saw this mornin’?’ Jones bust aout a-laafin’, an’ he says, ‘Ye kin take what’s left on ’em home in a basket an’ welcome!’ Blamed ef Seth hedn’t be’n eatin’ a dinner that cost him nigh on to twenty dollars.”
“Thet must hev riled him some,” remarked Jed.
“No, sir; he never seemed to realize the sitooation.”