"'Mornin', Mr. Harum,' he says.

"'Mornin', deakin,' I says. 'How are ye? an' how's Mis' Perkins these
days?'

"'I'm fair,' he says; 'fair to middlin', but Mis' Perkins is ailin'
some--as _usyul_' he says."

"They do say," put in Mrs. Bixbee, "thet Mis' Perkins don't hev much of
a time herself."

"Guess she hez all the time the' is," answered David. "Wa'al," he went
on, "we passed the time o' day, an' talked a spell about the weather an'
all that, an' finely I straightened up the lines as if I was goin' on,
an' then I says: 'Oh, by the way,' I says, 'I jest thought on't. I heard
Dominie White was lookin' fer a hoss that 'd suit him.' 'I hain't
heard,' he says; but I see in a minute he had--an' it really was a
fact--an' I says: 'I've got a roan colt risin' five, that I took on a
debt a spell ago, that I'll sell reasonable, that's as likely an' nice
ev'ry way a young hoss as ever I owned. I don't need him,' I says, 'an'
didn't want to take him, but it was that or nothin' at the time an' glad
to git it, an' I'll sell him a barg'in. Now what I want to say to you,
deakin, is this: That hoss 'd suit the dominie to a tee in my opinion,
but the dominie won't come to me. Now if _you_ was to say to him--bein'
in his church an' all thet,' I says, 'that you c'd get him the right
kind of a hoss, he'd believe you, an' you an' me 'd be doin' a little
stroke of bus'nis, an' a favor to the dominie into the bargain. The
dominie's well off,' I says, 'an' c'n afford to drive a good hoss.'"