I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o _sell_." Ripley glanced up at Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family Bitters." He was stricken dumb.

Doudney saw it all and roared.
"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bitters.
Ho--ho--ho--har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you git ?" "None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and made off, while Doudney screamed with merriment.
On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden.

Doudney had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up the struggle.

Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he had been doing, and at last he began lying about it.
"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail ?" "Goose eggs f'r settin'." He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson.

Gus never paid his debts, and he would only promise fifty cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yet so desperate was Ripley that this _quasi_ sale cheered him up not a little.
As he came down the road, tired, dusty and hungry, he climbed over the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, and slunk into the house without looking back.
He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democratic poster to be pasted there.
The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign wriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors hung on rails.