can.

Now out in the open a feller don't have to be a hypocrite: once I
worked a whole year for a man who hated me so he wouldn't speak to
me; but I didn't care, I liked the work and I did it an' he raised
my wages twice an' gave me a pony when I quit.

He was the sourest tempered man I ever see; but it was good trainin'
to live with him a spell. Lots of men has streaks of bein'
unbearable; but this man was the only one I ever met up with who was
solid that way, and didn't have one single streak of bein' likeable.
He was the only man I ever see who wouldn't talk to me. I was a
noticing sort of a kid an' I saw mighty early that what wins the
hearts o' ninety-nine men out of a hundred is listenin' to 'em talk.
That's why I don't talk much myself. But you couldn't listen to old
Spike Williams, 'cause the' wasn't no opportunity--he didn't even
cuss.

We was snowed up for two weeks one time an' I took a vow 'at I'd
make him talk. I tried every subject I'd ever heard of; but he
didn't even grunt. Just when things was clearin' off, I sez to him,
usin' my biggest trump: "Spike," sez I, "do you know what they say
about you?"

"No," sez he, "but you know what I say about them," an' he went on
with his packin'.

I thought for a while 'at the year I'd spent with Spike Williams was
a total loss; but jest the contrary. It had kept me studyin' an'
schemin' an' analysin' until, after that year had been stored away