He was careless and absent- minded.

In spite of her labors and complaints, he scattered his superfluous clothing, books, and papers over his rooms in "much-admired disorder." He gave the freedom of his house to the boys and girls of his neighborhood, who, presuming upon his good nature, laughed at her remonstrances and threats as they chased each other up and down the nicely-polished stairway.

Worse than all, he was proof against the vituperations and reproaches with which she indirectly assailed him from the recesses of her kitchen.

He smoked his pipe and dozed over his newspaper as complacently as ever, while his sins of omission and commission were arrayed against him.
Peewawkin had always the reputation of a healthy town: and if it had been otherwise, Dr.Singletary was the last man in the world to transmute the aches and ails of its inhabitants into gold for his own pocket.

So, at the age of sixty, he was little better off, in point of worldly substance, than when he came into possession of the small homestead of his father.