“There’s no chance of making a pile in the country,” said Amos Topper, who raised ten acres of “forage” regularly every season, and “rode” firewood for a living in the balance of the year. “’Tis all hard work and disappointment—ticks in the cattle and rust in the corn.”
“Soh!” said Abe Pike.
“Well; so it is!”
“Yet,” said Abe, “there’s chances.”
“Meanin’ pine-apples and bananas, which Dick Purdy made a fortune out of through growing them on the slope of a valley.”
“No; meanin’ diamonds.”
“There’s no diamonds down here.”
“Is that so? Well, I seed one right here, as big as a plum an’ as red as the eye of a coal gleamin’ outer the dark. Yes, sir.”
“Of course. It belonged to some digger from the field. For the matter of that, I’ve seen a whole bucketful of them, but then they was white, and the sight of ’em never made me any the richer.”
“Your head was allus too big for your hat, Amos. I expect that’s why there’s a hole in the crown of it for your hair to grow through—but it so happens this yer diamon’ I’m speakin’ of could ha’ been gathered by anyone who had the pluck to grab it.”