If you have, I believe I've got a good tenant for you." Jed looked troubled.

He laid down the hammer and took the last nail from his mouth.
"Now--now, Sam," he began, "you know--" "Oh, I know you've set your thick head dead against rentin' it at all, but that's silly, as I've told you a thousand times.

The house is empty and it doesn't do any house good to stay empty.
Course if 'twas anybody but you, Jed Winslow, you'd live in it yourself instead of campin' out in this shack here." Jed sat down on the box he had just nailed and, taking one long leg between his big hands, pulled its knee up until he could have rested his chin upon it without much inconvenience.
"I know, Sam," he drawled gravely, "but that's the trouble--I ain't been anybody but me for forty-five years." The captain smiled, in spite of his impatience.

"And you won't be anybody else for the next forty-five," he said, "I know that.

But all the same, bein' a practical, more or less sane man myself, it makes me nervous to see a nice, attractive, comfortable little house standin' idle while the feller that owns it eats and sleeps in a two-by-four sawmill, so to speak.