“Don’t calc’late to,” says the man.
“Well,” says Mark, sort of puzzled, “what do you do?”
“Right now, young feller, about all I do is hope. ’Tain’t a payin’ business, though comfortin’. I calc’late to work a mite and fish a mite and loaf consid’able. Doorin’ the fall and winter I hunt some and trap and read up in the papers what happens durin’ the summer. Also”—he stopped and twisted his nose again—“also I git so energetic-like that I’ve been knowed to shove a fish-shanty on to the ice and spear.”
“S-s-see many folks goin’ down the river?” asked Mark.
“’Tain’t what you’d call crowded. No. Couldn’t go so far’s to say people was jostlin’ one another.”
“Did you happen to see a b-b-boat with two men go past this mornin’?”
“Fat man that was hummin’ and a thin man that was sweatin’?”
“Yes,” says Mark.
“Sort of in a hurry?”
“They would ’a’ b-been,” says Mark.