OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



tables; but he could never find a grocer or 

 vegetable dealer who would pay him half price 

 for them; he undertook the small fruits, but 

 between the destruction of baskets, small 

 prices, or the payment of vagabond berry- 

 pickers from the town, (who trampled down 

 more in value than they gathered,) he aban- 

 doned that scheme ; he thinks he never bought 

 a cow, but he paid one third more than she was 

 worth, to the shrewd neighbors who hemmed 

 him in; if labor was twenty dollars a month, 

 he could never get it under twenty-five; his 

 breeding sows inevitably devoured the half 

 of their litters, though his watchfulness was 

 constant — (perhaps too constant). As for 

 horses, he never bargains for one noW, but he 

 insists that he should have a spavin or two 

 and the heaves, and by strict insistence on this, 

 he has the satisfaction of knowing some of the 

 defects in advance — a satisfaction he never 

 had until he adopted the rule; he had under- 

 taken the sale of milk in a weak moment of re- 

 solve, but he found he was selling large 

 quarts, whereas his rivals in the traffic were 

 all selling small quarts— he was selling pure 

 milk, and the neighbors were cooling down 

 their overheated cans with an infusion of cool 

 spring water. 



268 



