'I
should think he might be,' I says, 'but they ain't bothering my hands
the least little mite. I like to have 'em on my hands at anything less
than sixty a head,' I says. 'Your pa,' I went on, 'is the man that
started this here safety-first cry. Others may claim the honour, but it
belongs solely to him.' 'He never said anything about that,' says poor
Chester. 'He just said you was going to be short of range this summer.'
'Be that all too true, as it may be,' I says, 'but I still got my
business faculties--' And I was going on some more, but just then I seen
Nettie and Wilbur was awful thick over something he'd unwrapped from the
other package he'd brought. It was neither more nor less than a big
photo of C. Wilbur Todd. Yes, sir, he'd brought her one.
"'I think the artist has caught a bit of the real just there, if you
know what I mean,' says Wilbur, laying a pale thumb across the upper
part of the horrible thing.
"'I understand,' says Nettie, 'the real you was expressing itself.'
"'Perhaps,' concedes Wilbur kind of nobly. 'I dare say he caught me in
one of my rarer moods. You don't think it too idealized?'
"'Don't jest,' says she, very pretty and severe.
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