Says I: “Stop swearin’ to once, Josiah Allen, and instantly!”
My mean was lofty and scareful, and he stopped. But he went on in a firm and obstinate axent: “I am determined to fix up that house and rent it. Wimmen can’t see into business. They haint got the brains for it. You haint to blame for it, Samantha, but you haint got the head to see how profitable I am goin’ to make it. And then our nearest neighbors live now well onto a quarter of a mile away. How neat it will be to have neighbors right here by us, all the time, day and night.” And agin he says dreamily: “If I ever loved anything in this world, Samantha, I love to neighbor.”
But I held firm, and told him he’d better let well enough alone. But he was sot as sot could be, and went on and fixed up the house. It was a old house right acrost the road from our’n. One that was on the place when we bought it. All shackly and run down; nobody had lived in it for years. And I knew it wouldn’t pay to spend money on it. But good land! he wouldn’t hear a word to me. He went on a fixin’ it, and it cost him nearer a hundred dollars than it did anything else—besides lamin’ himself, and blisterin’ his hands to work on it himself, and fillin’ his eyes with plaster, and gettin’ creeks in his back, a liftin’ round and repairin’.
But he felt neat through it all. It seemed as if the more money he laid out, and the worse he got hurt, the more his mind soared up, a lottin’ on how much money he was goin’ to make a rentin’ it, and what a beautiful time he was a goin’ to enjoy a neighborin’. He would talk about neighborin’ most the hull time days, and would roust me up nights if he happened to think of any new and happifyin’ idea on the subject. Till if ever I got sick of any word in the hull dictionary, I got sick of that.
Well, jest as quick as the house was done, and he pushed the work on rapid and powerful, fairly drove it, he was in such a hurry, nothin’ to do but he must set off huntin’ up a renter, for he couldn’t seem to wait a minute. I told him to keep cool. Says I “You’ll make money by it if you do.”
But no! he couldn’t wait till somebody come to him. He wouldn’t hear a word to me. He’d throw wimmen’s heads in my face, and say they was week, and wuzn’t like men’s. He was so proud and haughty about the speck he had gone into, and the piles and piles of money he was goin’ to make, that once or twice he told me that I hadn’t no head at all. And then he’d hitch up the old mare, and go off a huntin’ round and enquirin’. And finally one day he come home from Jonesville tickled to death seeminly. He’d found a family and engaged ’em—Jonathan Spinks’es folks. They was to Jonesville a stayin’ with Miss Spinks’es sister, Sam Thrasher’s wife, and they had heerd of Josiah’s huntin’ round; so they hailed him as he was a goin’ by, and engaged it, made the bargain right there on the spot. And as I said, he was tickled to death almost, and says to me in a highlarius axent:
“They are splendid folks, Samantha.”
Says I in very cold tones: “Are they the Spinkses that used to live to Zoar?”
“Yes,” says he. “And they are a beautiful family, and I have made a splendid bargain. 50 dollars a year for the house and garden. What do you think now? I never should have known they was a lookin’ for a house if I hadn’t been a enquirin’ round. What do you think now about my keepin’ cool?”