Sez he, “You are mistaken, mom!”
“No I haint,” sez I firmly and with decesion. “No I haint. I don’t need no pool. It wouldn’t do me no good to keep it on my hands, and I haint no notion of settin’ up in the pool or pond business, at my age.”
“And then,” sez I reasonably, “the canal runs jest down below our orchard, and if we run short, we could get all the water we wanted from there. And we have got two good cisterns and a well on the place.”
Sez he, “What I mean is, bettin’ on a horse. Do you want to bet on which horse will go the fastest, the black one or the bay one?”
“No,” sez I, “I don’t want to bet.”
But he kep’ on a urgin’ me, and thinkin’ I had disappinted him in sellin’ a pool, or rather pond, I thought it wouldn’t hurt me to kinder gin in to him in this, so I sez mildly, “Bettin’ is sunthin’ I don’t believe in, but seein’ I have disappinted you in sellin’ your water power, I don’t know as it would be wicked to humor you in this and say it to please you. You say the bay horse is the best, so I’ll say for jest this once - There! I’ll bet the bay one will go the best.”
“Where is your money?” sez he. “It is five dollars for a bet. You pay five dollars and you have a chance to get back mebby 100.”
I riz right up in feerful dignity, and the buggy and I sez that one feerful word to him, “Gamblin’!” He sort a quailed. But sez he, “you had better take a five-dollar chance on the bay horse.”
“No,” sez I, with a freezin’ coldness, that must have made his ears fairly tingle it wuz so cold, “no I shall not gamble, neither on foot nor on horseback.”