“I b’lieve he’s ’bout four,” she said, without animation.
“Waal, he be toler’ble bouncin’ fur that,” said Doaks, looking with the eye of speculation at the boy, as if he were about to offer a bid for Leonidas, “but I kin see a heap o’ diff’unce ’twixt his size an’ Buck’s.”
The drunken man turned and stared at the diminutive person on the bench. “Waal,” he said in a low-spirited way, as if he must yield the point, “I never knowed ye wanted a steer o’ that size. Wouldn’t be much use ter ye. Our’n ain’t.”
“He ’pears sorter jubious in his temper. Does he hook?”
“Who? Buck?”—with an air of infinite amazement. “Why, Buck’s ez saaft ez L’onidas thar.”
As Leonidas was just now extremely loud, the comparison was hardly felicitous.
“I don’t want no work-ox, nohow,” said Doaks. “I want cattle ter fatten.”
“Jes’ try Buck. He’ll lay on fat fur ev’y ear o’ corn fedded him. Ye dunno Buck. He hain’t laid on much yit, ’kase, ye see,”—Jessup’s voice took a confidential intonation, although it was not lowered because of the roaring Leonidas,—“we-uns ain’t hed much corn ter feed ter Buck, bein’ back’ard las’ year. The drought cotched our late corn, an’ so Buck, though he worked it, he never got none sca’cely. An’ that’s why he ain’t no fatter ’n he be.”
Logical of Buck, but it availed him as little as the logic of misfortunes profits the rest of the world.