I'm payin' off an old score, an' gettin' off cheap, too.

That's what I'm doin'! I thought I'd hinted up to it putty plain, seein' 't I've talked till my jaws ache; but I'll sum it up to ye if you like." He stood with his feet aggressively wide apart, one hand in his trousers pocket, and holding in the other the "morgidge," which he waved from time to time in emphasis.
"You c'n estimate, I reckon," he began, "what kind of a bringin'-up I had, an' what a poor, mis'able, God-fersaken, scairt-to-death little forlorn critter I was; put upon, an' snubbed, an' jawed at till I'd come to believe myself--what was rubbed into me the hull time--that I was the most all-'round no-account animul that was ever made out o' dust, an' wa'n't ever likely to be no diff'rent.

Lookin' back, it seems to me that--exceptin' of Polly--I never had a kind word said to me, nor a day's fun.

Your husband, Billy P.Cullom, was the fust man that ever treated me human up to that time.

He give me the only enjoy'ble time 't I'd ever had, an' I don't know 't anythin' 's ever equaled it since.