"Well, he ain't raily goin' to put the thing on the road," Wrinkle said, seriously. "He counts on sellin' it off piece by piece. I went back to the store when he did. I was afeard, at the start, that he was cracked in the upper story, but I've sorter switched around. Old Welborne come in an' had his say about the snag Alf had at last struck in his overeagerness to have some'n to do now that he was back, an' went out as mad as the very devil about some'n or other. Jim an' me set down back at the desk an' watched Alf figure up. He looked tickled, and after a while he said:
"'Jim, I'm glad I got back. I know now that Texas ain't no place for my talent. It's overrun with sharp-witted Jews an' keen Yankees that know values down to a gnat's heel. But here in these mountains these yokels git scared clean out o' the'r senses when a dollar has to change hands. Do you know,' says he, 'that I'm out less'n two hundred this mornin', an' at a low estimate I have got a thousand dollars' wuth o' truck?'
"'I don't know, Alf,' Jim said. 'I'm with yore judgment, as a general thing, but not on this deal. I was lookin' at them hosses t'other day in the court-house yard, an' the Chester brass-band come along. Now, a average hoss,' Jim said, 'will either git scared or break an' run at a sound like that, but three o' them things you got this mornin' struck up a regular jig an' capered about the lot kickin' up the'r heels as if they was in a ring jumpin' over red strips o' cloth.'
"Well, folks," old Wrinkle continued, "you kin always tell a born trader by his not bein' in a hurry to unload, an' Alf is that way. While we all was settin' thar Pete Hepworth come in at the front, an' while he was on his way to us Alf said: 'You fellers hold yore tongues. That feller is itchin' fer a deal; I had my eye on 'im at the sale.'
"Pete leaned agin the platform-scales an' talked about the weather an' crops, an' then he said, kinder offhand, to Alf: 'I had a sort o' idea o' biddin' on that pile o' old planks, but when the sheriff lumped 'em in with that fine tent it let me out. I want to build me a cowhouse an' wagon-shed.'
"'I didn't care for the tent,' Alf said, an' he filled his pipe from a china bowl on the desk an' made Pomp fetch 'im a match. 'It was them planks I was after, an' I was bound to have 'em. They are smooth, ready-dressed, long-leaf, heart-pine boards, one an' a quarter by ten, with the ends sawed square an' seasoned by folks settin' on 'em under cover for three or four years—never had a nail driv' in 'em, nuther.'
"'Well, I never thought they was as good as all that,' Pete said, 'but what are you holdin' 'em at?'
"'I hain't thought much about it,' Alf said. 'I hain't much of a hand to jump at a trade. It railly does my eyes good to look at lumber like that these days when the best timber you kin git is full o' sap an' worm-holes. How would twenty-five dollars for the pile look to you?'
"'Why,' said Pete, with a funny look at me an' Jim, 'you only paid eleven for the tent an' planks together.'
"That hain't got a thing to do with yore deal an' mine,' Alf said, an' he turned an' axed Jim some'n about shippin' some chickens to Augusta that Jim didn't seem to know how to answer.