your father's ears a-shiverin' there afore me, but yours 'll do.' 

 "My heavens alive, Mrs. Lathrop, you'd ought to 'a' seen him! He went from red to purple 'n' from purple to mos' black, 'n' his eyes stood right out, 'n' he shook his cane right in my face 'n' screamed loud enough to set the dead jumpin'. 

 "'Susan Clegg, your father was a shark! Susan Clegg, your father was a skinflint! Susan Clegg, your father was a miser! Susan Clegg, your father was a thief!' 'n' all this with me where I c'dn't but hear, Mrs. Lathrop, 'n' he must 'a' known it too. 'Susan Clegg, I was a young man in difficulties,' he says, ''n' I wanted a hunderd dollars bad,' he says, ''n' 'f I'd had it I c'd 'a' bought into a nice business 'n' married a nice girl with a nice property 'n' made this place blossom like a wilderness 'n' seen the fig-trees o' my fig-trees sittin' in my shade. 'N' I went to your father, 'n' I told him all the inmost recesses o' my heart o' hearts,' he says, ''n' 'xplained to him how 'n' why 'n' wherefore the business c'dn't but pay, 'n' then took him to see the girl 'n' p'inted out all her good p'ints, 'n' then asked him to lend me the hunderd dollars, 'n' hired a livery horse 'n' drove him home to think about it. 'N' what followed after, Susan Clegg,'—oh, Mrs. Lathrop, I never see the like o' the way he suddenly swelled 'n' blued right then!—''n' what come next? I waited the wait o' the innocent 'n' trustin' for one long 'n' unremittin' week, 'n' then, when I was nigh to mad with sittin' on red-hot needles by day 'n' by night without let or hindrance, what did he answer?—what did he answer to him 's laid in the hollow o' his hand, confidin' fully 'n' freely in his seein' what a good investment it 'd be? What did he answer, Susan Clegg? He answered 's he c'd n't do it, 'n' 's it was n't no possible use whatever to ask him again! Susan Clegg, I smashed a winder,' he says, 'right then 'n' there,' he says, ''n' I writ a letter 'n' it must 'a' been that letter 's you found, f'r I never writ him no other afore or after. 'N' then I went West to make my fortune 'n' I did n't make no fortune, but I got my hands on a hunderd dollars 'n' I come home lickety-split to buy that business 'n' marry that girl. I went first to see about the business 's it was right 'n' natural 't I sh'd, 'n' what did I find, Susan Clegg, what did I find?' Mrs. Lathrop, I never see the like in all my days, born or unborn. I thought he'd yell my head off. 'I found your father'd bought the business, my business, 'n' I was left out in the freezin', icy cold! Susan Clegg, I smashed a table,' he says, ''n' two chairs,' he says, ''n' I went to see the girl 'n' ask her to wait a little 

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