"That's Eb Goodnight," Calliope replied, "him of the new-born spine. Wasn't it like the Proudfits to ask them?"
And, at my question:
"Some folks," Calliope said, "has got spines and some folks hasn't. But what I say is, nobody can tell which is which. Because now and then the soft-spine' kind just hardens up all in a minute same as steel. So when I meet a stranger that sort o' sops along through life, limp and floppy, I never judge him. I just say, 'You look some like a loose shutter, but mebbe you can fair bang the house down, if you rilly get to blowin'.' It was that way with Eb Goodnight.
"I donno how it is other places. But I've noticed with us here in Friendship—an' I've grown to the town from short dresses to bein'-careful-what-I-eat—I've often noticed't when folks seems not to have any backbone to speak of, or even when they go 'round sort o' crazy—they's usually some other reason, like enough. Sensitive or sick or lonesome, or like that. It was so with Eb—an' it was so with Elspie. Elspie, though, was interestin' on account o' bein' not only a little crazy, but rill pretty besides. But Eb, he was the kind that a sign-board is more interestin' than. An' yet—"
With that she paused, looking down some way of her own thought. I knew Calliope's "an' yet." It splendidly conceded the entire converse of her argument.
"Eb come here to Friendship," she went on, "less public than Elspie did. Elspie come official, as an inmate o' the county house. Eb, he sort o' crep' in town, like he crep' everywhere else. He introduced himself to me through sellin' needles. He walked in on me an' a two-weeks ironin' one mornin' with, 'Lemme present myself as Ebenezer Goodnight, sewin' needles, knittin' needles, crochet hooks an' shuttles an' anything o' that,' an' down he set an' never opened his mouth about his needles again. Eb was real delicate, for an agent. He just talked all the time about Friendship an' himself. 'The whol' blame' town's kin,' s'e; 'I never see such a place. Everybody's kin, only just me. Air you,' he ask' me wistful, 'cousin' of 'em all, too?'
"'Mis' Sprague that's dead was connected up with me by marriage an' Mis' Sykes is my mother's secunt cousin,' I owned up.'
"'That's it again,' s'e, sighin'. 'I'm the odd number, dum it,' he says sorrowful.
"Well, an' he hed sort of an odd-number way about him, too. He went along the street like he didn't belong. I donno if you know what I mean, but he was always takin' in the tops o' buildin's an' lookin' at the roads an' behavin' like he noticed—the way you don't when you live in a town. Yes, Ebenezer Goodnight went around like he see things for the first time. An' somehow he never could join in. When he walked up to a flock o' men, he stood side of 'em, an' not with 'em. An' he shook hands sort o' loose an' temporary like he meant somethin' else. An' he just couldn't bear not to agree with you. If he let out't the sky was blue an' you said, No, pink, he'd work around till he'd dyed his sky pink, too. That man would agree to things he never heard of. Let Peleg Bemus be tellin' one o' his eastern janitor adventures, an' Eb'd set an' agree with him, past noddin' an' up to words, all about elevators an' Ferris boats an' Eyetalians an' things he'd never laid look to. He seemed to hev a spine made mostly o' molasses. An' sometimes I think your spine's your soul.
"Eb hed been lonelyin' 'round the village a month or so when Sum Merriman, that run the big rival business to the post-office store, an' was fire chief besides, took him an' his peddler's pack into the dry goods end—an' Eb was tickled. He went down first mornin' in his best clo'es, a-wearin' both collar an' cuffs. But when somebody remarked on the clo'es, he didn't hev backbone enough to keep on wearin' 'em—he slimpsed right back to his peddler duds an' done his best to please. An' he did please—he made a rill first-rate merchant clear up till June o' the year. An' then Sum Merriman, his employer, he went to work an' died.