There was a feller here once by the name of jim smily, in the winter of ’49 — or maybe it was the spring of ’50 — i don’t recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because i remember the big flume wasn’t finished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiosest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side, and if he couldn’t he’d change sides — any way that suited the other man would suit him — any way just so’s he got a bet, he was satisfied. this excerpt uses dialect, which is a characteristic of a) modernism. b) puritanism. c) regionalism. d) transcendentalism.