"Well, you know, Nathaniel was always one of the dreamin' kind; a real
good man, but he wa'n't like folks."

Lizzie nodded.

"And if you remember, he was all the time inventin' things. Well, now
he's got set that he can invent a machine so as you can see the dead.
I mean spirits. Well, of course he's crazy. Josh says he's crazy as a
bluefish. But what's troublin' him now is that he can't finish his
machine. He says that if he goes to the Farm, what with him bein'
blindish and not able to do for himself, that his glasses and
wheels--and dear knows what all that he's got for ghost-seein'--will
get all smashed up. An' I guess he's 'bout right. They're terrible
crowded, Mis' Dean says. Nat allows that if he could stay at Dyer's,
or some place, a couple of months, where he could work, quiet, he'd
make so much money that he'd pay his board ten times over. Crazy. But
then, I can't help bein' sorry for him. Some folks don't mind the
troubles of crazy folks, but I don't know why they ain't as hard to
bear as sensible folks' troubles."

"Harder maybe," Lizzie said.

"Josh said he just set and wrung his hands together, and he says to
Hiram Wells, he says, 'Gimme a month--and I'll finish it. For the
sake,' he says, 'of the blessed dead.' Gave you goose-flesh, Josh
said."

"You can see that he believes in his machine."

"Oh, he's just as sure as he's alive!"