"'Workin' with your fins,' says this Wilkins, 'is low an'
onendoorin' to a gent with pride to wound. It ain't no use neither.
I knows folks as works, an' folks as don't, an' you can't tell one
from which. They gets along entirely sim'lar.

"'But how you goin' to live?' says Dave Tutt, when he makes this
remark, an' who is fussin' with Wilkins for bein' so reedic'lous an'
shiftless.

"'That's all right about my livin',' says Wilkins; 'don't you-all
pass no restless nights on my account. Go read your Scriptures; read
that bluff about feedin' the young ravens an' sparrers. Well, that's
me this trip. I'm goin' to rap for a show-down on them promises an'
see what's in 'em.'

"'This camp ain't strong on Holy Writ, nohow,' says Dave Tutt, 'an'
I'm partic'lar puny that a-way. It's your game though, an' your
American jedgement goes soopreme as to how you plays it.'

"This Wilkins lives in a wickeyup out on the aige of the town, an' a
girl, which she's his daughter, about 19 years old, keeps camp for
him. No one knows her well. She stays on her reservation mighty
close, an' never seems visible much. I notices her in the New York
Store once, buyin' some salt hoss, an'she ain't no dream of
loveliness neither as to looks.

"Her face makes you feel she's good people though, with her big soft
eyes. They has a tired, broke-down look, like somehow she's been
packed more'n she can carry, an' has two or three notions about
layin' down with the load.