When I've got salt water underneath me, I'm a man.

But I told you that afore.
"However, this is what I didn't tell you nor nobody else in this part of the state: I stayed single till I got to be past forty.

Everybody set me down as an old bach.

Then I met a woman; yes, sir, I met a woman." He made this assertion as if it was something remarkable.

His companion on the bench made no comment.
"She was a widow woman," went on Seth, "and she had a little property left her by her first husband.