“Looks so,” says I.
“We got to see that churn.”
“You bet,” says I.
“Second floor, on the corner,” says Catty.
We went over to the livery-stable because we liked to talk to Pazzy Bills, the bus-driver, when we didn’t have anything else special to do. Pazzy was a mighty nice man and about the best quoit-pitcher in the county. He said that quoit-pitching was really his business and that he just drove the bus for exercise. Said hanging on to the lines was just the thing that kept his arm in condition to throw horseshoes right.
Pazzy was pitching against the blacksmith when we got there, and we watched them a spell. While the blacksmith was throwing Pazzy talked to us.
“Glad to see you takin’ a interest into the greatest game in the world,” says he. “There hain’t no game like quaites.” (Pazzy and ’most everybody called it “quaites” instead of “quoits” in our town, but when I’m writing it down I have to spell it right, don’t I? or folks would get the idee I didn’t know nothing much about right grammar and spelling. I do. You can tell it by the way I’ve wrote about this story.)
“Yes, sirree, Bob!” says Pazzy, “a feller that kin pitch quaites first class is as good as anybody. There hain’t nothin’ he couldn’t do if he was to set his hands to it. You gimme a quaite-player every time. Whenever I vote for a President of the U-nited States I says to myself, says I, ‘Does he look like he could pitch a horseshoe?’ If he does I vote for him, and if he don’t I don’t. There’s been elections when I wouldn’t vote for either man ’cause they didn’t have the build for it.... One thing I don’t take to about this here Kinderhook that folks is so crazy about. He won’t even look at a game. No, sir. He’ll walk right by without so much as turnin’ his head. ‘’Tain’t right,’ says I, ‘and I don’t care who hears me. Any man that don’t like to watch this here game hain’t to be trusted.’”
“Catty and me has a set of shoes,” says I. “We’re practisin’ up, and one of these days we’re a-goin’ to come down and challenge you.
“Now that’s the way to talk. Seems like boys nowadays is more int’rested into foolish games like baseball and football and that kind of a thing where you smack a little ball over a fish-net with a whang-dingus. Hain’t the int’rest in quaites there was once. Glad you’re bein’ brought up right.”