"No doubt of that, Jim, but—"
"Yes. And it's a healthy, growin' child now."
"Yes. It sartin is."
"Then, if I was you, I'd take my medicine and be thankful. Time enough to complain when you commence to go into another decline. Ain't that so?"
I didn't answer.
"Isn't it so?" he asked again.
"Maybe," I said; "but it may be a fatal disease next time; and it's better to keep well than to be cured—and a lot cheaper."
He said I was a reg'lar bullfrog for croakin', and hinted that I was in the back row of the primer class so fur's business instinct went. I had a feelin' that he was right, but I had another feelin' that I was right, too. However, there was nothin' to do but keep quiet and wait the next development. Afore Christmas the development landed with both feet.
I'd heard the news twice already that mornin'. Fust at the Poquit House breakfast table, where 'twas served along with the chopped hay cereal and warmed over and picked to pieces, as you might say, all through the b'iled eggs and spider-bread, plumb down to the doughnuts and imitation coffee. Then I'd no sooner got outdoor than Solon Saunders sighted me, and he 'bout ship and beat acrost the road like a porgie-boat bearin' down on a school of fish. He was so excited that he couldn't wait to get alongside, but commenced heavin' overboard his cargo of information while he was in mid-channel.
"Did you hear about the Higgins Place bein' rented, Cap'n Snow?" he sung out. "It's been took for next summer and—"