“Before you kin put a plaster on a stummick,” says I, “you got to catch your stummick. Mine’s goin’ to be movin’ around rapid.”
We mogged along home. When we got to the corner where I turn off we stopped a minute, and I says to Mark:
“If anybody sends in debts against Silas Doolittle, what you goin’ to do about it?”
“Do?” says he, surprised-like. “Why, pay ’em, of course!”
“What with?” says I.
“Money,” says he.
“Money,” says I, “is like stummicks—you got to catch both of ’em before you kin use ’em.”
“When you got to have a thing,” says he, “you m-mostly git it.”
That was Mark Tidd all over. If a thing had to be done, or if there was something that he had to have, why, there was an end of it. He didn’t waste time fussing about how hard it was to do, or thinking maybe he couldn’t get it. No, sirree. He just went ahead and tried to get it, and while he was trying he kept right on believing he was going to come out right. He was the kind of a fellow that digs in. I guess maybe that’s one of the main reasons why he manages to do things other folks don’t do. It hain’t always that he’s smarter, though, goodness knows, he is smarter. But he won’t let on that he’s beat till he is beat, and then he won’t let on. It’s hard work and being determined that gets things for him. He’s that stubborn you wouldn’t believe. “I got to do it,” says he, and then he does it. Somebody else would say: “I ought to do it, but I dunno how in tunket I’m going to manage it. Looks like it was impossible.” Well, while that other fellow was worrying and feeling sorry for himself, Mark would have the thing half done.
“How’s your cost system gittin’ on?” says I.