"'Susan Clegg, your father was a shark! Susan Clegg, your father was a
skinflint! Susan Clegg, your father was a miser! Susan Clegg, your
father was a thief!' 'n' all this with me where I c'dn't but hear,
Mrs. Lathrop, 'n' he must 'a' known it too. 'Susan Clegg, I was a
young man in difficulties,' he says, ''n' I wanted a hunderd dollars
bad,' he says, ''n' 'f I'd had it I c'd 'a' bought into a nice
business 'n' married a nice girl with a nice property 'n' made this
place blossom like a wilderness 'n' seen the fig-trees o' my fig-trees
sittin' in my shade. 'N' I went to your father, 'n' I told him all the
inmost recesses o' my heart o' hearts,' he says, ''n' 'xplained to him
how 'n' why 'n' wherefore the business c'dn't but pay, 'n' then took
him to see the girl 'n' p'inted out all her good p'ints, 'n' then
asked him to lend me the hunderd dollars, 'n' hired a livery horse 'n'
drove him home to think about it. 'N' what followed after, Susan
Clegg,'--oh, Mrs. Lathrop, I never see the like o' the way he suddenly
swelled 'n' blued right then!--''n' what come next? I waited the wait
o' the innocent 'n' trustin' for one long 'n' unremittin' week, 'n'
then, when I was nigh to mad with sittin' on red-hot needles by day
'n' by night without let or hindrance, what did he answer?--what did
he answer to him 's laid in the hollow o' his hand, confidin' fully
'n' freely in his seein' what a good investment it 'd be? What did he
answer, Susan Clegg? He answered 's he c'd n't do it, 'n' 's it was
n't no possible use whatever to ask him again! Susan Clegg, I smashed
a winder,' he says, 'right then 'n' there,' he says, ''n' I writ a
letter 'n' it must 'a' been that letter 's you found, f'r I never writ
him no other afore or after. 'N' then I went West to make my fortune
'n' I did n't make no fortune, but I got my hands on a hunderd dollars
'n' I come home lickety-split to buy that business 'n' marry that
girl. I went first to see about the business 's it was right 'n'
natural 't I sh'd, 'n' what did I find, Susan Clegg, what did I find?'