“Now look a-here, Abner,” he said, argumentatively, “what’s the good o’ gittin’ mad? When I’ve had my say out, why, if you don’t like it you needn’t, an’ nobody’s a cent the wuss off. Of course, if you come down to hard-pan, it ain’t none o’ my business—”
“No,” interjected Abner, in grim assent, “it ain’t none o’ your business!”
“But there is such a thing as being neighborly,” Ni went on, undismayed, “an’ meanin’ things kindly, an’ takin’ ’em as they’re meant.”
“Yes, I know them kindly neighbors o’ mine!” broke in the farmer with acrid irony. “I’ve summered ’em an’ I’ve wintered ’em, an’ the Lord deliver me from the whole caboodle of ’em! A meaner lot o’ cusses never cumbered this footstool!”
“It takes all sorts o’ people to make up a world,” commented this freckled and sandy-headed young philosopher, testing the crimson skin of his apple with a tentative thumb-nail. “Now you ain’t got anything in particular agin me, have you?”
“Nothin’ except your breed,” the farmer admitted. The frown with which he had been regarding Ni had softened just the least bit in the world.
“That don’t count,” said Ni, with easy confidence. “Why, what does breed amount to, anyway? You ought to be the last man alive to lug that in—you, who’ve up an’ soured on your own breed—your own son Jeff!”
I looked to see Abner lift his fork again, and perhaps go even further in his rage. Strangely enough, there crept into his sunburnt, massive face, at the corners of the eyes and mouth, something like the beginnings of a puzzled smile. “You’re a cheeky little cuss, anyway!” was his final comment. Then his expression hardened again. “Who put you up to cornin’ here, an’ talkin’ like this to me?” he demanded, sternly.
“Nobody—hope to die!” protested Ni. “It’s all my own spec. It riled me to see you mopin’ round up here all alone by yourself, not knowin’ what’d become of Jeff, an’ makin’ b’lieve to yourself you didn’t care, an’ so givin’ yourself away to the whole neighborhood.”
“Damn the neighborhood!” said Abner, fervently.