Ol' man Judson was a curious affair, had his own way o' doin' every
blessed thing, an' whenever he hired a man he always went through
the same rigamarole. "Now what I'm contractin' for," he'd say, "is
just only your time an' whatever part o' your thinkin' apparatus as
is needed in doin' YOUR share o' my business. If I detail you to sit
in the shade an' count clouds, I don't want no argument, I want the
clouds counted. When I don't specially express a hungerin' for any
of your advice, that's the very time when you don't need to give
any. Whenever you think you have a kick comin'--why think again.
Then if you still see the kick, make it to the foreman. If that
don't work make it to me; but when you make it to me, you want to be
mighty sure it will hold water. Above all things I hate a liar, a
coward, an' a sneak. Now get busy 'cause life is short an' time is
fleetin'."

That was the way he used to talk, an' some used to set him down as a
tyrant, an' some had him guessed in as a rough old codger with a
soft heart,--everybody took a guess at him,--but the blood in the
turnip was that ol' Jabez Judson was purty tol'able sizey when you
carne to fence him in. Everybody called him Cast Steel Judson, an'
you might work through the langwidge five times without adding much
to the description. Hard he was an' stern an' no bend to him; but at
the same time you could count on him acting up to his nature. He
wa'n't no hypocrite, an' th''s a heap o' comfort jest in that. A
feller ain't got no kick comin' when a rattler lands on him; but if
a wood dove was to poison him, he'd have a fair right to be put out.
The only child 'at Cast Steel had was one daughter; but that don't
indicate that paternity was one long vacation for Jabez. Barbie--her
full name was Barbara--was the sweetest an' the gamest an' the most
surpriseable creature a human being ever met up with, an' ol' Jabez