And I do wish, Josiah, you would hear to me." "Well, well, I am hearin' you, hain't I, and been hearin' for a year back, I hain't deef as an adder!" And he jammed his hat down over his ears and went to the barn.

But there wuz a sort of a waverin' expression to his linement that made me have hopes.
Well, when I had, with the children's help and an enormous expenditure of good vittles and eloquence, brought him round to the idee, I found I had another trial worse than the first to contend with.

Instead of hirin' a first rate workman who knew his bizness, he wuz bound, on account of cheapness, to hire a conceited creeter who thought he could do anything better than anyone else could.
He knew how to milk, Jabez Wind did, and how to clean stables, and plough and hoe corn.

But he felt he could do plumbin' better than them who had handled plumbs for years.

And when I see Josiah wuz sot on hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music lessons on the banjo.