Tirzah Ann’s Summer Trip,
AND OTHER SKETCHES.

By JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE,
Author of “Samantha at Saratoga,” “Sweet Cicely,” “Miss
Richards’ Boy,” Etc.

NEW YORK:
THE F. M. LUPTON PUBLISHING COMPANY
Nos. 72-76 Walker Street.

Reprinted from Peterson’s Magazine
By Special Arrangement.

Copyright, 1892, by
The F. M. LUPTON PUBLISHING COMPANY.

TIRZAH ANN’S SUMMER TRIP

Tirzah Ann and Whitfield—Tirzah Ann is Josiah’s darter, you know—make a likely couple, though I say it that shouldn’t. Whitfield is indestrius, and she is equinomical, which makes things go well. But Tirzah Ann is dretful ambitious, and wants to do as other folks do, and so knowin’ it is very genteel to go off in the summer for a rest, why she wanted to go off for a rest, too. And Whitfield bein’ perfectly bound up in her, of course wanted to do jist what she wanted to. I thought it wus foolish in her. But I always had very deep and filosofical idees on these things.

Now, rests are as likely things as ever wus—so are changes. But I have said, and I say still, that I had ruther lay down to hum, as the poet saith, “on my own delightful feather bed,” with a fan and newspaper, and take a rest, than dress up and travel off two or three hundred milds in search of it, through the burnin’ sun, with achin’ body, wet with presperation all over. It seems to me I could get more rest out of the former than out of the more latter course, and proceedin’.

Howsomever, everybody to their own mind.

Likewise with changes. I have said, and I say still, that changes are likely and respectable, if you can get holt of ’em, but how can you?

Havin’ such powerful and eloquent emotions as I have, such principles a-performin’ inside of my mind, enjoyin’ such idees and aspirations, and longings, and hopes, and joys, and despairs, and—everything, I s’pose that is what makes me think that what is goin’ on ’round me—the outside of me—hain’t of so much consequence. I seem to live inside of myself (as it were), more than I do on the outside. And so it don’t seem of much consequence what the lay of the land ’round me may happen to be, whether it is sort o’ hilly and mountaneous, or more level like. Or whether steam-cars may be a-goin by me (on the outside of me), or boats a-sailin’ round me, or milk wagons.

You see, the real change—the real rest would have to be on the inside, and not on the outside. Nobody, no matter what their weight may be by the steelyards, can carry ’round such grand, hefty principles as I carry ’round, without gettin’ tired, or enjoy the lofty hopes, and desires, and aspirations that I enjoy, and meditate on all the sad, and mysterious, and puzzlin’ conundrums of the old world, as I meditate on ’em, without gettin’ fairly tuckered out. Great hearts enjoy greatly, and suffer greatly, and so, sometimes, when heart-tired and brain-weary, if I could quell down them lofty and soarin’ emotions, and make ’em lay still for a spell, and shet up my heart like a buro draw, and hang up the key, and onscrew my head, and lay it onto the manteltry-piece, then I could go off and enjoy a change that would be truly refreshin’ and delightful.

But as it is, from Janesville clear to Antipithies, the puzzlin’ perplexities and contradictions, the woes and the cares of the old world, foller right on after us as tight as our shadders. Our pure and soarin’ desires, our blind mistakes and deep despairs, our longings, strivings, memories, heart-aches, all the joys and burdens of a soul, has to be carried by us up the steepest mountains or down to the lowest vallies. The same emotions that was a-performin’ inside of our minds down in the Yo Semety, will be a-performin’ jist the same up on the Pyramids. The same questionin’ eyes, sort o’ glad, and sort o’ sorrowful, that looked out over New York harber, will look out over the Bay of Naples, and then beyond ’em both, out into a deeper and more mysterious ocean, the boundless sea that lays beyond everything, and before everything, and ’round everything. That great, misty sea of the unknown, the past, the hereafter; tryin’ to see what we hain’t never seen, and wonderin’ when we shall see it, and how, and where, and wherefore, and why? Tryin’ to hear the murmur of the waves that we know are a-washin’ up ’round us on every side, that nobody hain’t never heard, but we know are there; tryin’ to ketch a glimpse of them shadowy sails that are floatin’ in and out forevermore with a freight of immortal souls, bearin’ ’em here and away. We know we have sailed on ’em once, and have got to agin, and can’t ketch no glimpse on ’em, can’t know nothin’ about em; sealed baby lips—silent, dead lips never tellin’ us nothin’ about ’em. Each soul has got to embark, and sail out alone, out into the silence and the shadows, out into the mysterious Beyond.

Standin’ as we do on the narrow, precarious ground of the present, the mortal, and them endless, eternal seas, a-beatin’ ’round us, on every side of us, bottomless, shoreless, ageless, and we a not seein’ either of ’em, under them awful, and lofty, and curious circumstances, what difference does it really make to us whether we are a-settin’ down or a-standin’ up; whether we are on a hill or in a valley; whether a lot of us have got together like aunts in a aunt hill, or whether we are more alone like storks or ostriges?

We can’t get away from ourselves—can’t get a real change nohow, unless we knock our heads in and make idiots and lunys of ourselves. Movin’ our bodys round here and there is only a shadow of a change—a mockery. As if I should dress up my Josiah in a soldier coat, or baby clothes, there he is, inside of ’em, clear Josiah—no change in him, only a little difference in his outside circumstances.

This is a very deep and curious subject. I have talked eloquently on it, I know, and my readers know, and I could go on, and filosifize on it jest as eloquent and deep, fur hours and hours. But I have already episoded too fur, and to resoom, and continue on.

I told Tirzah Ann I thought it wus foolish in her to go off and rest, when they both, she and Whitfield, too, looked so awful rested now, and as bright as dollars. And that babe—well, it always wus the most beautiful child in the hull world, and the smartest child; but it does seem more as if it was smarter than ever, and beautifuler.

You see, their yard is large and shady, and the little thing havin’ got so it could run alone, would be out in the yard, a-playin’ round, most all the time. It was dretful good for her, and she enjoyed it, and Tirzah Ann enjoyed it, too; for after she got her work done up, all she had to do was to set in the door, and watch that little, pretty thing a-playin’ round, and bein’ perfectly happy.

It was a fair and lovely evenin’, though very warm; my salaratus had nearly gi’n out, and I had made the last drawin’ of tea for supper, and so, when I had got the dishes washed up, and Josiah had milked, he hitched up the old mare, and calm and serene in our two minds as the air of the evenin’, we rode down to Janesville, to get these necessarys, and a little beefsteak for breakfast, and see the children.

We found that Thomas J. and Maggie had gone to tea to her folkses, that afternoon, but Tirzah Ann and Whitfield wus to home, and I don’t want to see a prettier sight than I see, as we druv up.

There Tirzah Ann sat out on the portico, all dressed up in a cool, mull dress—it was one I bought for her, before she was married, but it wus washed and done up clean, and looked as good as new. It was pure white, with little bunches of blue forget-me-nots on it, and she had a bunch of the same posys in her hair and in the bosom of her frock, (there is a hull bed of ’em in the yard.) She is a master hand for dressin’ up, and lookin’ pretty, but at the same time, would be very equinomical, if she wus let alone. She looked the picture of health and enjoyment, plump and rosy, and happy as a queen. And she was a queen. Queen of her husband’s heart, and settin’ up on that pure and lofty throne of constant and deathless love, she looked first-rate, and felt so.

It had been a very warm day, really hot, and Whitfield, I s’pose, had come home kinder tired, so he had stretched himself out at full length on the grass, in front of the portico; and there he lay, with his hands clasped under his head, a-talkin’ and laughin’, and lookin’ up into Tirzah Ann’s face, as radiant and lovin’ as if she was the sun, and he a sunflower. But that simily, though very poetical and figurative, don’t half express the good looks, and health, and happiness on both their faces, as they looked at each other, and that babe, that most beautifulest of children, a-toddlin’ round, first up to one, and then the other, with her bright eyes a-dancin’, and her cheeks red as roses.

But the minute she ketched sight of her grandpa and me and the mare, she jest run down to the gate, as fast as her little legs could carry her, and I guess she got a pretty good kissin’ from Josiah and me. And Whitfield and Tirzah Ann came hurryin’ down to the gate, glad enough to see us, as they always be. Josiah, of course, had to take that beautiful child for a little ride, and Whitfield said he guessed he would go, too. So I got out, and went in, and as we sot there on the stoop, Tirzah Ann up and told me what she and Whitfield wus a-goin’ to do. They wus agoin’ away for a rest.

“Why,” said I, “I hardly ever, in my hull life, see anybody look so rested as you do now, both on you. How, under the sun, can you be rested any more than you be now?”

“Well,” she said, “it’s so very genteel to go. Mrs. Skidmore is a-goin’, and Mrs. Skidmore says nobody who made any pretensions to bein’ genteel stayed to home durin’ the heated term, no matter how cool the place wus they wus a-livin’ in.”

“What do they go for mostly?” says I, in a very cool way; for I didn’t like the idee.

“Oh, for health and——”

But says I, interruptin’ of her:

“Hain’t you and Whitfield enjoyin’ good health?”

“Never could be better health than we both have got,” says she. “But,” says she, “folks go for health and pleasure.”

But says I:

“Hain’t you a-takin’ comfort here—solid comfort?”

“Yes,” says she. “Nobody can be happier than Whitfield and I, every day of our life.”

“Wall, then,” says I, coolly, “you had better let well enough alone.”

But says she:

“Folks go for a rest. Whitfield and I thought we would go for a rest.”

“Rest from what?” says I. Says I, “don’t you and Whitfield feel fresh and rested every mornin’, ready to take up the laber of the day with a willin’ heart?” Says I, “Do you either on you have any more work to do than is good for your health to do? Don’t you find plenty of time for rest and recreation, every day as you go along?” Says I, “It is with health jist as it is with cleanin’ house: I don’t believe in lettin’ things get all run down and nasty, and then, once a year, tear everything to pieces, and do up all the hull cleanin’ of a year to once, and then let everything go agin for another year. No! I believe in keepin’ things slick and comfortable day by day, and year by year. In business, have a daily mixture of cleanin’ and comfort—in health, have a daily mixture of laber, recreation and rest.” Says I, takin’ breath:

“I mean for folks like you and Whitfield, who can do so. Of course, some have to work beyond their strength—let them take their rest and comfort when they can git it. Better take it once a year, like a box of pills, than not at all. But as for you and Whitfield, I say agin, in the words of the poet, ‘Better let well enough alone.’”

But says she:

“I want to do as other folks do. I am bound to not let Mrs. Skidmore get the upper hand of me. I want to be genteel.”

“Wall,” says I, “if you are determined to foller them paths, Tirzah Ann, you mustn’t come to your ma for advice. She knows nothin’ about them pathways; she never walked in ’em.”

“Mrs. Skidmore,” says she, “said that all the aristocracy of Janesville will go away for the summer for a change, and I thought a change would do Whitfield and me good.”

“A change!” says I, in low axents, a-lookin’ round the charming, lovely prospect, the clean, cool cottage, with its open doors and windows, and white, ruffled curtains swayin’ in the cool breeze; the green, velvet grass, the bright flower beds, the climbing, blossoming vines, the birds singing in the orchard, the blue lake layin’ so calm and peaceful in the distance, shinin’ over the green hills and forests, and the wide, cloudless sky bending above all like a benediction. “A change,” says I, in low, tremblin’ tones of emotion. “Eve wanted a change in Paradise, and she got it, too.”

But, says Tirzah Ann, for my axents impressed her fearfully:

“Don’t you believe in a change for the summer? Don’t you think they are healthy?”

I didn’t go onto the heights and depths of filosofy, on which I so many times had flew and doven; she had heard my soarin’ idees on the subject time and time again; and eloquence, when it is as soarin’ and lofty as mine, is dretful tuckerin’, especially after doin’ a hard day’s work, so I merely said, tacklin’ another side of the subject, says I:

“When anybody is a-bakin’ up alive in crowded cities, when the hot sun is shinin’ back on ’em from brick walls and stony roads, when all the air that comes to them comes hot and suffocatin’, like a simon blowin’ over a desert—to such, a change of body is sweet, and is truly healthy. But,” says I, lookin’ ’round agin on the cool and entrancin’ beauty and freshness of the land and other scape, “to you whom Providence has placed in a Eden of beauty and bloom, I agin repeat the words of the poet: ‘Better let well enough alone.’”

I could see by the looks of her face that I hadn’t convinced her. But at that very minute, Josiah came back and hollered to me that he guessed we had better be a-goin’ back, for he wus afraid the hens would get out, and get into the turnips; he had jist set out a new bed, and the hens wus bewitched to eat tops off; we had shet ’em up, but felt it wus resky to not watch ’em.

So we started, but not before I told Whitfield my mind about their goin’ off for a rest. I said but little, for Josiah wus hollerin’, but what I did say wus very smart, and to the purpose. But if you’ll believe it, after all my eloquent talk, and everything, the very next week they went off for the summer. They came to see us the day before they went, but their plans wus all laid (they wus goin’ to the same place Skidmore and his wife went), and their tickets wus bought, so I didn’t say nothin’ more—what wus the use? Thinks’s I, bought wit is the best, if you don’t pay too much for it. They’ll find out for themselves whether I wus in the right or not. But bad as I thought it wus goin’ to be, little did I think it would be as bad as it wus, little did I think Tirzah Ann would be brought home on a bed, but she wus; and Whitfield walked with a cane, and had his arm in a sling. But as I told Josiah, “if anybody wus a mind to chase up pleasure so uncommon tight it wusn’t no wonder if they got lamed by it.”

Wall, the very next day after they got back from their trip, I went to see ’em, and Tirzah Ann told me all about it, all the sufferin’s and hardships they had enjoyed on their rest, and pleasure exertion. There wasn’t a dry eye in my head while I was a-listenin’ to her, and lookin’ into their feeble and used up lookin’ faces. She and Whitfield wus poor as snails; I never see either of ’em in half so poor order before. They hadn’t no ambition nor strength to work, they looked gloomy and morbid, their morals had got all run down, their best clothes wus all worn out. And that babe, I could have wept and cried to see how that little thing looked, jest as poor as a little snail, and pale as a little fantom. And, oh, how fearfully cross! It was dretful affectin’ to me to see her so snappish. She reminded me of her grandpa, in his fractious hours.

It wus a dretful affectin’ scene to me, I told Tirzah Ann, says I, “Your mean and Whitfield’s don’t look no more like your old means than if they didn’t belong to the same persons.”

Tirzah Ann burst right out a-crying, and says she:

“Mother, one week’s more rest would have tuckered me completely out; I should have died off.”

I wiped my own spectacles, I was so affected, and says I, in choked up axents:

“You know I told you just how it would be; I told you you was happy enough to home, and you hadn’t better go off in search of rest or of pleasure.”

And says she, breakin’ right down agin, “One week more of such pleasure and recreation, would have been my death blow.”

Says I, “I believe it, I believe you; you couldn’t have stood another mite of rest and recreation, without it’s killin’ of you—anybody can see that by lookin’ at your mean.” But says I, knowin’ it wus my duty to be calm, “It is all over now, Tirzah Ann; you hain’t got to go through it agin; you must try to overcome your feelin’s. Tell your ma all about it. Mebby it will do you good, in the words of the him, ‘Speak, and let the worst be known. Speakin’ may relieve you.’”

And I see, indeed, that she needed relief. Wall, she up and told me the hull on it. And I found out that Mrs. Skidmore wus to the bottom of it all—she, and Tirzah Ann’s ambition. I could see that them wus to blame for the hull on it.

Mrs. Skidmore is the wife of the other lawyer in Janesville; they moved there in the spring. She wus awful big feelin’, and wus determined from the first to lead the fashion—tried to be awful genteel and put on sights of airs.

And Tirzah Ann bein’ ambitius, and knowin’ that she looked a good deal better than Mrs. Skidmore did, and knew as much agin, and knowin’ that Whitfield wus a better lawyer than her husband wus, and twice as well off, wusn’t goin’ to stand none of her airs. Mrs. Skidmore seemed to sort o’ look down on Tirzah Ann, for she never felt as I did on that subject.

Now, if anybody wants to feel above me, I look on it in this light, I filosofize on it in this way: it probably does them some good, and it don’t do me a mite of hurt, so I let ’em feel. I have always made a practice of it—it don’t disturb me the width of a horse-hair. Because somebody feels as if they wus better than I am, that don’t make ’em so; if it did, I should probably get up more interest on the subject. But it don’t; it don’t make them a mite better, nor me a mite worse, so what hurt does it do anyway?

As I said, it probably makes them feel sort o’ good, and I feel ferst-rate about it; jest as cool and happy and comfortable as a cluster cowcumber at sunrise. That’s the way I filosofize on it. But not studyin’ it out as I have, not divin’ into the subject so deep as I have doven, it galled Tirzah Ann to see Mrs. Skidmore put on such airs. She said:

“She wus poor, and humbly, and did’t know much, and it maddened her to see her feel so big, and put on such airs.”

And then I had to go deep into reeson and filosofy agin to convince her; says I:

“Such folks have to put on more airs than them that have got sunthin’ to feel big over.” Says I, “It is reeson and filosify that if anybody has got a uncommon intellect, or beauty, or wealth, they don’t, as a general thing, put on the airs that them do that hain’t got nothing’; they don’t have to; they have got sunthin’ to hold ’em up—they can stand without airs. But when anybody hain’t got no intellect, nor riches, nor nothin’—when they hain’t got nothin’ only jest air to hold ’em up, it stands to reeson that they have got to have a good deal of it.”

I had studied it all out, so it wus as plain to me as anything. But Tirzah Ann couldn’t see it in that light, and would get as mad as a hen at Mrs. Skidmore ever sense they came to Janesville, and was bound she shouldn’t go by her and out-do her. And so when Mrs. Skidmore gin it out in Janesville that she and her husband wus a goin’ away for the summer, for rest and pleasure, Tirzah Ann said to herself that she and her husband would go for rest and pleasure, if they both died in the attempt. Wall, three days before they started, Tirzah Ann found that Mrs. Skidmore had got one dress more than she had, and a polenay, so she went to the store and got the material and ingredients, and sot up day and night a-makin’ of ’em up; it most killed her a-hurryin’ so.

Wall, they started the same day, and went to the same place the Skidmores did—a fashionable summer resort—and put up to the same tavern, to rest and recreate. But Mrs. Skidmore bein’ a healthy, raw-boned woman, could stand as much agin rest as Tirzah Ann could. Why, Tirzah Ann says the rest wus enough to wear out a leather wemen, and how she stood it for two weeks wus more than she could tell. You see she wusn’t used to hard work. I had always favored her and gone ahead with the work myself, and Whitfield had been as careful of her, and as good as a woman to help her, and this rest came tough on it; it wus dretful hard on her to be put through so.

You see she had to dress up two or three times a day, and keep the babe dressed up slick. And she had to promenade down to the waterin’-place, and drink jist such a time, and it went against her stomach, and almost upset her every time. And she had to go a-ridin’, and out on the water in boats and yots, and that made her sick, too, and had to play crokey, and be up till midnight to parties. You see she had to do all this, ruther than let Mrs. Skidmore get in ahead on her, and do more than she did, and be more genteel than she wus, and rest more.

And then the town bein’ full, and runnin’ over, they wus cooped up in a little mite of a room up three flights of stairs; that, in itself, wus enough to wear Tirzah Ann out; she never could climb stairs worth a cent. And their room wus very small, and the air close, nearly tight, and hot as an oven; they wus used to great, cool, airy rooms to hum; and the babe couldn’t stand the hotness and the tightness, and she began to enjoy poor health, and cried most all the time, and that wore on Tirzah Ann; and to hum, the babe could play round in the yard all day a’most, but here she hung right on to her ma.

And then the rooms on one side of ’em wus occupied by a young man a-learnin’ to play on the flute; he had been disappointed in love, and he would try to make up tunes as he went along sort o’ tragedy style, and dirge-like, the most unearthly and woe-begone sounds, they say, that they ever heard or heard on. They say it wus enough to make anybody’s blood run cold in their veins to hear ’em; he kept his room most of the time, and played day and night. He had ruther be alone day times and play, than go into company, and nights he couldn’t sleep, so he would set up and play. They wus sorry for him, they said they wus; they knew his mind must be in a awful state, and his sufferin’s intense, or he couldn’t harrow up anybody’s feelin’s so. But that didn’t make it more the easier for them.

Tirzah Ann and Whitfield both says that tongue can’t never tell the sufferin’s they underwent from that flute, and their feelin’s for that young man; they expected every day to hear he had made way with himself, his agony seemed so great, and he would groan and rithe so fearful, when he wasn’t playin’.

And the room on the other side of ’em wus occupied by a young woman who owned a melodien; she went into company a good deal, and her spells of playin’ and singin’ would come on after she had got home from parties. She had a good many bo’s, and wus happy dispositioned naturally; and they said some nights, it would seem as if there wouldn’t be no end to her playin’ and singin’ love songs, and performin’ quiet pieces, polkys, and waltzes, and such. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield are both good-hearted as they can be, and they said they didn’t want to throw no shade over young hearts; they had been young themselves not much more than two years ago; they knew by experience what it wus to be sentimental, and they felt to sympathize with the gladness and highlarity of a young heart, and they didn’t want to do nothin’ to break it up. But still it came tough on ’em—dretful. I s’pose the sufferin’s couldn’t be told that they suffered from them two musicianers. And the babe not bein’ used to such rackets, nights, would get skairt, and almost go into hysterick fits. And two or three nights, Tirzah Ann had ’em, too—the hystericks. I don’t know what kept Whitfield up; he says no mony would tempt him to go through it agin; I s’pose she almost tore him to pieces; but she wasn’t to blame, she didn’t know what she was a-doin’.

It hain’t no use to blame Tirzah Ann now, after it is all over with; but she sees it plain enough now, and she’s a-sufferin’ from the effects of it, her tryin’ to keep up with Mrs. Skidmore, and do all she done. And there is where her morals get all run down, and Whitfield’s, too.

To think of them two, she that was Tirzah Ann Allan, and Whitfield Minkley! to think of them two! brought up as they had been, with such parents and step-parents as they had, settin’ under such a preacher as they had always set under! to think of them two a-dancin’!

Why, if anybody else had told me, if it had come through two or three, I would have despised the idee of believin’ it. But it didn’t come through anybody; she owned it up to me herself; I couldn’t hardly believe my ear when she told me, but I had to. They had parties there every evenin’ in the parlor, and Mrs. Skidmore and her husband went to ’em, and they danced. I didn’t say nothin’ to hurt her feelin’s, her mean looked so dretful, and I see she was a-gettin’ her pay for her sinfulness, but I groaned loud and frequent, while she wus a-tellin’ me of this, (entirely unbeknown to me).

Here was where Whitfield got so lame. He never had danced a step before in his life, nor Tirzah Ann nuther. But Skidmore and his wife danced every night, and Tirzah Ann, bein’ so ambitius, was determined that she and Whitfield should dance as much as they did, if they fell down a-doin’ of it; and not bein’ used to it, it almost killed ’em, besides loosening their mussels, so that it will be weeks and weeks before they get as strong and as firm as they wus before, and I don’t know as they ever will. When mussels get to totterin’, it is almost impossible to get ’em as firm as they wus before. But truely they got their pay, Whitfield bein’ so tuckered out with the rest and recreation he had been a-havin’, it lamed him awfully, rheumatiz set in, and he wus most bed-rid. And then a base ball hit him, when he was a-playin’; a base ball hit him on the elbo’, right on the crazy-bone; I s’pose he wus most crazy, the pain wus terrible, but the doctor says, with care, he may get over it, and use his arm agin. At present, it is in a sling.

It seemed to hurt Tirzah Ann more innardly; it brought on a kind of weakness. But where she got her death-blow (as it were), what laid her up, and made her sick a-bed, was goin’ in a-bathin’, and drinkin’ so much mineral water. Ridin’ out on the water was bad for ’em both, as I said; made ’em as sick as snipes, they were dretfully sick every time they went, almost split their stomachs. But if she had kep’ on top of the water, it would have been better for her, sick as she was. But she wasn’t goin’ to have Mrs. Skidmore bathe, and she not, not if she got drowned in the operations. She was always afraid of deep water—dretful. But in she went, and got skairt, the minute the water was over her ankles; it skairt her so, she had sort o’ cramps, and gin up she was a-drowndin’, and that made it worse for her, and she did crumple right down in the water, and would have been drownded, if a man hadn’t rescued of her; she wus a-sinkin’ for the third time, when he laid holt of her hair, and yanked her out.

But she hain’t got over the fright yet, and I am afraid she never will. Whitfield says now, night after night, she will jump right up inside of the bed, and ketch holt of him, and yell the most uneerthly yells he ever, ever heard; and night after night, in the dead of night, she will jump right over him, onto the floor, thinkin’ she is drowndin’ agin; it makes it hard for ’em both, dretful.

The mineral water, they say, told awfully, and it went against Tirzah Ann’s stomach so, that she couldn’t hardly get down a tumblerful a day; she wus always dretful dainty and sort o’ delicate-like. But Mrs. Skidmore bein’ so tough, could drink seven tumblersful right down. And it seems she acted sort o’ overbearin’ and haughty, because Tirzah Ann couldn’t drink so much as she could. And put on airs about it. And Tirzah Ann couldn’t stand that, so one day, it wus the day before she came home, she said to herself that Mrs. Skidmore shouldn’t have that to feel big over no longer, so she drinked down five tumblersful, and wus a-tryin’ to get down the other two, when she wus took sick sudden and violent, and I s’pose a sicker critter never lived than she wus. It acted on her like a emetic, and she had all the symptoms of billerous colic. I s’pose they wus awful skairt about her, and she was skairt about herself; she thought she wus a-dyin’, and she made Whitfield promise on a Testament to carry her, the next day, to Janesville, alive or dead. So he wus as good as his word, and brought her home, the next day, on a bed.

They got round the house in a day or two, but they have been laid up for repairs (as you may say,) ever sense. They are sick critters, now, both on ’em. Never, never, did I see such awful effects from rest and recreation before. As they both say, one week’s more rest would have finished ’em for this world.

And besides these outside sufferin’s that are plain to be seen, there are innurd hurts that are fur worse. Outside bruises and hurts can be reached with arneky and wormwood, but how can you bathe a wounded sperit, or rub it with hot flannel? You can’t do it.

Now, this that I am goin’ to say now, I wouldn’t have get round for the world—it must be kept! But seein’ I am on this subject, I feel it to be my duty to tell the truth, and the hull truth. But it musn’t go no further: it must be kept.

Tirzah Ann didn’t tell this right out to me, but I gathered it from little things I heard her and Whitfield say, and from what others said who wus there.

If I didn’t feel it to be my bounden duty to write the truth, and if it wusn’t for its bein’ a solemn warnin’ to them who may have felt a hankerin’ toward goin’ off on a trip, I couldn’t write out the awful words. But it must be kept.

I mistrust, and almost know, that Tirzah Ann flirted—flirted with a man! You see Mrs. Skidmore, wantin’ to appear fashionable and genteel, flirted with men, and I know jest as well as I want to know, that Tirzah Ann did, not wantin’ to be outdone.

I know she and Whitfield quarreled, dretfully, for the first time in their lives; that I had right from her own mouth. But she didn’t tell me what it wus about; she looked sort o’ sheepish and weakin’, and turned the subject, and I hain’t one to pump.

But I s’pose from what they both said to me, they came pretty nigh partin’. And I know jest as well as if I see it myself, that Tirzah Ann bein’ so ambitius, and not wantin’ to be outdone by Mrs. Skidmore, went to flirtin’, and I mistrust it wus with old Skidmore himself. I know he and Whitfield don’t speak. Tirzah Ann never could bear him, but I s’pose she wanted to gall Mrs. Skidmore.

Oh, such doin’s, such doin’s! You hain’t no idee how it worked up Josiah and me, and mortified us. As I told Josiah that night—after we went to bed, we wus a-talkin’ the matter over—and says I:

“Josiah Allen, what would their morals have been, if they had rested and recreated any longer?”

And he groaned out, and sayed what galled him the worst wus to think of “the money they had throwed away.” Says he, “it will cramp ’em for months and months.” And it did.

A PLEASURE EXERTION.

They have been havin’ pleasure exertions all summer here to Jonesville. Every week a most they would go off on a exertion after pleasure, and Josiah was all up in end to go too.

That man is a well principled man, as I ever see, but if he had his head he would be worse than any young man I ever see to foller up picnics, and 4th of Julys, and camp meetings, and all pleasure exertions. But I don’t encourage him in it. I have said to him time and agin, “There is a time for everything, Josiah Allen, and afer any body has lost all their teeth, and every might of hair, on the top of their head, it is time for ’em to stop goin’ to pleasure exertions.”

But good land! I might jest as well talk to the wind! if that man should get to be as old as Mr. Methusler, and be a goin’ a thousand years old, he would prick up his ears if he should hear of an exertion. All summer long that man has beset me to go to ’em, for he wouldn’t go without me. Old Bunker Hill himself, haint any sounder in principle than Josiah Allen, and I have had to work head-work to make excuses, and quell him down. But last week the old folks was goin’ to have one out on the lake, on an island, and that man sot his foot down that go he would.

We was to the breakfast-table a talkin’ it over, and says I, “I shan’t go, for I am afraid of big water anyway.”

Says Josiah, “You are jest as liable to be killed in one place as another.”

Says I, with a almost frigid air, as I passed him his coffee, “Mebby I shall be drownded on dry land, Josiah Allen; but I don’t believe it.”

Says he in a complainin’ tone, “I can’t get you started onto a exertion for pleasure any way.”

Says I, in a almost eloquent way, “I don’t believe in makin’ such exertions after pleasure. I don’t believe in chasin’ of her up.” Says I, “Let her come of her own free will.” Says I, “You can’t catch her by chasin’ of her up, no more than you can fetch a shower up in a drewth, by goin’ out doors, and running after a cloud up in the heavens above you. Sit down, and be patient, and when it gets ready the refreshin’ rain drops will begin to fall without any of your help. And it is jest so with Pleasure, Josiah Allen; you may chase her up over all the ocians, and big mountains of the earth, and she will keep ahead of you all the time; but set down, and not fatigue yourself a thinkin’ about her, and like as not she will come right into your house unbeknown to you.”

“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll have another griddle cake, Samantha.” And as he took it, and poured the maple syrup over it, he added gently, but firmly, “I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have you present at it, because it seems jest to me, as if I should fall overboard durin’ the day.”

Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin’ could stir me up like that one speech. For though I haint no hand to coo, and don’t encourage him in bein’ spooney at all, he knows that I am wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.

We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was 15 miles from Jonesville, and the old mare bein’ so slow, we had got to start a hour or 2 ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first ont, that I had jest as lives set up all night, as to be routed out at 2 o’clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin’, that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that he would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did! So we went to bed the sun an hour high. But we hadn’t more’n settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop to the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see, it was visitors come to spend the evenin’. Elder Wesley Minkly and his family, and Deacon Dobbins’ folks. Josiah vowed that he wouldn’t stir one step out of that bed that night. But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin’ on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I haint deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on, before they came in I wouldn’t tell ’em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn’t took my night-cap off. They looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin’. But when Josiah came out of the bedroom, with what little hair he has got standin’ out in every direction, no 2 hairs a layin’ the same way, and one of his galluses a hangin’ ’most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told ’em. I thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’ folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’, so they never went home till after 10 o’clock.

It was most 11 o’clock when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin’ into a drowse, I heard the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that roused Josiah up, and he thought he heard the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a marchin’ round most all night. And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin’, and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated, and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreamt that Josiah was a droundin’, and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin’ for him. It started me so, that I jest ketched hold of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, “What does ail you, Samantha? I haint been asleep before, to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is.” And then he got out of bed again, and went out and looked at the clock. It was half-past one, and he said, “he didn’t believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn’t miss that for nothin’.”

“Exertion,” says I, in a awful cold tone. “I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell.”

But I got up at 2 o’clock, and made a cup of tea, as strong as I could, for we both felt beat out, worse than if we had watched in sickness.

But as bad, and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a goin’ to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black gingham, and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest made up. So jest to please him I put it on, and my best bonnet. And that man, all I could do and say, would wear a pair of pantaloons I had been a makin’ for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin’ up a military company to Thomas J’s school, and these pantaloons was white with a blue stripe down the sides, a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to ’em. And says he:

“I will wear ’em Samantha, they look so dressy.”

Says I, “They hain’t hardly done. I was goin’ to stitch that blue stripe on the left leg on again. They haint finished as they ought to be, and I would not wear ’em. It looks vain in you.”

Says he, “I will wear ’em, Samantha. I will be dressed up, for once.”

I didn’t contend with him. Thinks I, we are makin’ fools of ourselves, by goin’ at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself by wearin’ them white pantaloons, I won’t stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto ’em, so I felt that I had got to wash ’em any way, before Thomas J. took ’em to school. So he put ’em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of ’em. The basket wouldn’t hold ’em. So Josiah had to put a bottle of raspberry jell into the pocket of his dress coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons, and knives, and forks, in his pantaloons, and breast pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land! he would have carried a knife in his mouth, if I had asked him to, he felt so neat about goin’, and boasted so, on what a splendid exertion it was goin’ to be.

We got to the lake about eight o’clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep’ a comin’, and before 10 o’clock we all got there. There was about 20 old fools of us, when we all got collected together. And about 10 o’clock we set sail for the island.

I had made up my mind from the first on’t to face trouble, and so it didn’t put me out so much when Deacon Dobbins in getting into the boat stept onto my new lawn dress, and tore a hole in it as big as my two hands, and ripped it half offen the waist. But Josiah havin’ felt so animated and tickled about the exertion, it worked him up awfully when, jest after we had got well out onto the lake, the wind took his hat off and blew it away out onto the lake. He had made up his mind to look so pretty that day, and be so dressed up, that it worked him up awfully. And then the sun beat down onto him; and if he had had any hair onto his head it would have seemed more shady. But I did the best I could by him, I stood by him, and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin’ it on, I see there was something more than mortification that ailed him. The lake was rough, and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginning to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad too. Oh! the wretchedness of that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness, in so short a time, as I did on that pleasure exertion to the island. I suppose our bein’ up all night a most, made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.

I set right down on a stun, and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After a while I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little. Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The butter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies, and tarts, and delicate cake, and cookies, looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of the companies did. But we did the best we could, and begun to make preparations to eat, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the way the sun scalded. There wasn’t a man or a woman there but what the perspiration jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy lookin’ set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn’t one of us but what had the rheumatiz, more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.

After we got the fire started, I histed a umbrell, and sat down under it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.

Wall, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, where is Josiah! I hadn’t seen him since we had got there. I riz right up and asked the company, almost wildly, “if they had seen my companion Josiah?” They said “No, they hadn’t.” But Celestine Wilkins’ little girl, who had come with her grandpa and grandma Gowdey, spoke up, and says she, “I seen him a goin’ off toward the woods; he acted dreadfully strange, too, he seemed to be a-walkin’ off side-ways.”

“Had the sufferins’ we had undergone made him delirious?” says I to myself, and then I started off on the run toward the woods, and old Miss Bobbet, and Miss Gowdey, and Sister Minkley, and Deacon Dobbins’ wife, all rushed after me. Oh, the agony of them 2 or 3 minutes, my mind so distracted with forebodins, and the perspiration a pourin’ down. But all of a sudden on the edge of the woods we found him. Miss Gowdey weighed 100 pounds less than me. He sat backed up against a tree, in a awful cramped position, with his left leg under him. He looked dretful uncomfortable, but when Miss Gowdey hollered out “Oh, here you be; we have been skairt about you. What is the matter?” he smiled a dretful sick smile, and says he, “Oh, I thought I would come out here, and meditate a spell. It was always a real treat to me to meditate.”

Jest then I came up a pantin’ for breath, and as the women all turned to face Josiah he scowled at me, and shook his fist at them 4 wimmen, and made the most mysterious motions with his hands toward ’em. But the minute they turned round he smiled in a sickish way, and pretended to go to whistlin’.

Says I, “What is the matter, Josiah Allen? What are you here for?”

“I am a meditatin’, Samantha.”

Says I, “Do you come down, and jine the company this minute, Josiah Allen. You was in a awful taken’ to come with ’em, and what will they think to see you act so?”

The wemmin happened to be lookin’ the other way for a minute, and he looked at me as if he would take my head off, and made the strangest motions toward ’em, but the minute they looked at him, he would pretend to smile that deathly smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, we’re goin’ to get dinner right away, for we are afraid it will rain.”

“Oh, wall,” says he, “a little rain, more or less, haint a goin’ to hinder a man from meditatin!”

I was wore out, and says I, “Do you stop meditatin’ this minute, Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “I won’t stop, Samantha. I let you have your way a good deal of the time; but when I take it into my head to meditate, you hain’t a goin’ to break it up.”

Just at that minute they called to me from the shore, to come that minute to find some of my dishes. And we had to start off. But, oh, the gloom of my mind that was added to the lameness of my body. Them strange motions, and looks of Josiah, were on me. Had the sufferins’ of the night added to the trials of the day made him crazy. I thought more’n as likely as not I had got a luny on my hands for the rest of my days. And then, oh, how the sun did scald down onto me, and the wind took the smoke so into my face, that there wasn’t hardly a dry eye in my head. And then a perfect swarm of yeller wasps lit down onto our vittles as quick as we laid ’em down, so you couldn’t touch a thing without running a chance to be stung. Oh, the agony of that time. But I kep’ to work, and when we had got dinner most ready, I went back to call Josiah again. Old Miss Bobbet said she would go with me, for she thought she see a wild turnip in the woods there, and her boy Shakespeare had a awful cold, and she would dig one to give him. So we started up the hill again. He set jest in the same position, all huddled up, with his leg under him, as uncomfortable lookin’ a creeter as I ever see. But when we both stood in front of him, he pretended to look careless and happy, and smiled that sickish smile.

Says I, “Come, Josiah Allen, dinner is ready.”

“O, I hain’t hungry,” says he. “The table will probably be full. I had just as leves wait.”

“Table full!” says I. “You know just as well as I do that we are eatin’ on the ground. Do you come and eat your dinner this minute.”

“Yes, do come,” says Miss Bobbet.

“Oh,” says he, with that ghastly smile, a pertendin’ to joke, “I have got plenty to eat here; I can eat muskeeters.”

The air was black with ’em, I couldn’t deny it.

“The muskeeters will eat you, more likely,” says I. “Look at your face and hands.”

“Yes, they have eat considerable of a dinner out of me, but I don’t begrech ’em. I haint small enough, I hope, to begrech ’em one meal.”

Miss Bobbet went off in search of her wild turnip, and Josiah whispered to me with a savage look, and a tone sharp as a sharp axe:

“Can’t you bring 40 or 50 more wimmin up here? You couldn’ come here a minute, without a lot of other wimmin tied to your heels!”

I began to see daylight, and after Miss Bobbet got her wild turnip, I made some excuse to send her on ahead, and then Josiah told me.

It seems he had set down on that bottle of raspberry jell. That blue stripe on the side wasn’t hardly finished, as I said, and I hadn’t fastened my thread properly, so when he got to pullin’ at ’em to try to wipe off the jell, the thread started, and bein’ sewed on a machine, that seam jest ripped right open from top to bottom. That was what he walked off sideways toward the woods for. Josiah Allen’s wife haint one to desert a companion in distress. I pinned ’em up as well as I could, and I didn’t say a word to hurt his feelin’s, only I jest said this to him, as I was a fixin’ ’em. I fastened my grey eye firmly and almost sternly onto him, and says I, “Josiah Allen, is this pleasure?” Says I, “You was determined to come.”

“Throw that in my face again, will you? What if I wuz? There goes a pin into my leg. I should think I had suffered enough without your stabin’ of me with pins.”

“Wall, then stand still, and not be a caperin’ round so. How do you suppose I can do anything with you a tossin’ round so?”

“Wall, don’t be so aggravatin’ then.”

I fixed ’em as well as I could, but they looked pretty bad, and then there they was all covered with jell too. What to do I didn’t know. But finally I told him I would put my shawl onto him. So I doubled it up corner ways, as big as I could, so it almost touched the ground behind, and he walked back to the table with me. I told him it was best to tell the company all about it, but he jest put his foot down that he wouldn’t, and I told him if he wouldn’t that he must make his own excuses to the company about wearin’ the shawl. So he told ’em that he always loved to wear summer shawls, he thought it made a man look so dressy.

But he looked as if he would sink, all the time he was a sayin’ it. They all looked dretful curious at him, and he looked as meachin’ as if he had stole a sheep, and he never took a minute’s comfort nor I nuther. He was sick all the way back to the shore and so was I. And jest as we got into our wagons and started for home, the rain begun to pour down. The wind turned our old umberell inside out in no time; my lawn dress was most spilte before, and now I give up my bunnet. And I says to Josiah:

“This bunnet and dress are spilte, Josiah Allen, and I shall have to buy some new ones.”

“Wall! wall! who said you wouldn’t!” he snapped out.

But it wore on him. Oh, how the rain poured down. Josiah havin’ nothin’ but his handkerchief on his head felt it more than I did. I had took a apron to put on a gettin’ dinner, and I tried to make him let me pin it on to his head. But, says he, firmly:

“I haint proud and haughty, Samantha, but I do feel above ridin’ out with a pink apron on for a hat.”

“Wall, then,” says I, “get as wet as sop if you had rather.”

I didn’t say no more, but there we jest sot and suffered. The rain poured down, the wind howled at us, the old mare went slow, the rheumatiz laid hold of both of us, and the thought of the new bunnet and dress was a wearin’ on Josiah, I knew.

There wasn’t a house for the first 7 miles, and after we had got there I thought we wouldn’t go in, for we had to get home to milk, any way, and we was both as wet as we could be. After I had beset him about the apron, we didn’t say hardly a word for as much as 13 miles or so; but I did speak once, as he leaned forward with the rain a-drippin’ offen his bandanna handkerchief onto his white pantaloons. I says to him in stern tones:

“Is this pleasure, Josiah Allen?”

He gave the old mare a awful cut, an says he, “I’d like to know what you want to be so agrevatin’ for?”

I didn’t multiply any more words with him, only as we drove up to our door-step, and he helped me out into a mud puddle, I says to him:

“Mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”

And I’ll bet he will. I haint afraid to bet a ten cent bill, that that man won’t never open his mouth to me again about a Pleasure Exertion.

HOW WE TOOK IN SUMMER BOARDERS.

Last summer, as the days grew hot, Josiah grew fearfully cross. And his worst spells would come on to him, as he would come home from Jonesville.

You see, an old friend of his’n, Jake Mandagood by name, was a-takin’ in boarders, and makin’ money by ’em. And s’pose, from what I learned afterward, that he kep’ a-throwin’ them boarders into Josiah’s face, and sayin’ if it wuzn’t for his wife, he could make jest as much money. Jake Mandagood had heerd me talk on the subject time and agin. For my feelin’s about summer boarders, and takin’ of ’em in, had always been cast-iron. I wouldn’t take ’em in, I had allers said.

Josiah, like other pardners of his sect, is very fond of havin’ things as he wants ’em; and he is also fond of makin’ money; and I s’pose that wus what made him so fearfully cross to me. But I was skairt most to death, seein’ him come home lookin’ so manger, and crosser than any bear out of a circus.

Thinks I to myself: “Mebby, he is a-enjoyin’ poor health.” And then, thinks I: “Mebby, he is a-backslidin’, or mebby, he is backslid.”

And one day, I says to him, says I:

“Josiah Allen, what is the matter with you? You don’t act like the same man you did, several weeks ago. I am goin’ to steep you up some catnip, and thorough-wort, and see if that won’t make you feel better; and some boneset.”

“I don’t want none of your boneset and catnip,” says he, impatient-like.

“Wall, then,” says I, in still more anxious tones, “if it ’taint yur health that is a-sufferin’, is it yur morals? Do you feel totterin’, Josiah? Tell yur pardner.”

“My morals feel all right.”

Says I, anxiously: “if yur hain’t enjoyin’ poor health, Josiah, and yur morals feel firm, why is there such a change in yur mean?” says I. “Yur mean don’t seem no more like the mean it used to be, than if it belonged to another man.”

But, instead of answering my affectionate arguments, he jumped up, and started for the barn.

And, oh! how feerfully, feerfully cross he wus, for the next several days. Finally, to the breakfast-table, one mornin’, I says to him, in tones that would be replied to:

“Josiah Allen, you are a-carryin’ sunthin’ on yur mind.” And says I, firmly: “Yur mind hain’t strong enough to carry it. You must and shall let yur pardner help you!”

Seein’ I was immovably sot onto the determination to make him tell, he up and told me all about it.

Says he: “Summer boarders is what ails me; I want to take ’em in.”

And then he went on to tell how awfully he wus a-hankerin’ after ’em. Now, he knew, piles and piles of money wus to be made by it—and what awful pretty business it wus, too. Nothin’ but fun, to take ’em in! Anybody could take sights and sights of comfort with ’em. He said Mandagood said so. And, it wus so dreadful profitable, too. And he up and told me that Mandagood wus a-twittin’ him, all the time, that, if it wuzn’t for me, he could make jest as much as he chose.

Mandagood knew well how I felt on the subject. He knew well I was principled against it, and sot. I don’t like Mandagood. He misuses his wife, in the wurst way. Works her down almost to skin and bone. They don’t live happy together at all. He is always envious of anybody that lives pleasant and agreeable with their pardners, and loves to break it up. And I shall always believe that it wus one great reason why he twitted Josiah so. And, for Mandagood to keep at him all the time, and throw them dozen boarders in his face, it hain’t no wonder to me that Josiah felt hurt.

Josiah went on, from half to three-quarters of an hour, a-pleadin’ with me, and a-bringin’ up arguments, to prove out what a beautiful business it wus, and how awful happifying; and, finally, says he, with a sad and melancholy look:

“I don’t want to say a word to turn your mind, Samantha; but, I will say this, that the idee that I can’t take boarders in, is a-wearin’ on me; it is a-wearin’ on me so, that I don’t know but it will wear me completely out.”

I didn’t say nothin’; but I felt strange and curious. I knew that my companion wus a man of small heft—I knew it wouldn’t take near so much to wear him out, as it would a heftier man—and the agony that I see printed on his eyebrows, seemed to pierce clear to my very heart. But, I didn’t say nothin’.

I see how fearfully he was a-sufferin’, and my affection for that man is like an oxes, as has often been remarked.

And, oh! what a wild commotion began to go on inside of me, between my principles and my affections.

As I have remarked and said, I wus principled against takin’ in summer boarders. I had seen ’em took in, time and agin’ and seen the effects of it. And I had said, and said it calmly, that boarders was a moth. I had said, and I have weighed my words, (as it were,) as I said it, that when a woman done her own housework, it wus all she ort to do, to take care of her own menfolks, and her house, and housen-stuff. And hired girls, I wus immovably sot against from my birth.

Home seemed to me to be a peaceful haven, jest large enough for two barks; my bark, and Josiah’s bark. And when foreign schooners, (to foller up my simely), sailed in, they generally proved in the end to be ships of war, pirate fleets, stealin’ happiness and ease, and runnin’ up the death’s head of our lost joy at the masthead.

But, I am a-eppisodin’, and a-wanderin’ off into fields of poesy; and to resume, and go on. Any female woman, who has got a beloved pardner, and also a heart inside of her breast bones, knows how the conflict ended. I yielded, and giv’ in. And, that very day, Josiah went and engaged ’em.

He had heerd of ’em from Mandagood. They wus boarders that Mandagood had had the summer before, and they had applied to him for board agin; but, he told Josiah, that he would giv’ ’em up to him. He said “He wouldn’t be selfish and onneighborly, he would give ’em up.”

“Why,” says Josiah, as he wus a tellin’ it over to me, “Mandagood acted fairly tickled at the idee of givin’ ’em up to me. There hain’t a selfish hair in Jake Mandagood’s head—not a hair!”

I thought it looked kinder queer, to think that Mandagood should act so awful willin’ to give them boarders up to Josiah and me, knowin’, as I did, that he was as selfish as the common run of men, if not selfisher. But I didn’t tell my thoughts. No, I didn’t say a word. Neither did I say a word when he said there wus four children in the family that wus a-comin’. No, I held firm. The job was undertook by me, for the savin’ of my pardner. I had undertook it in a martyr way, a almost John Rogers way, and I wuzn’t goin’ to spile the job by murmurin’s and complainin’s.

But, oh! how animated Josiah Allen wus that day, after he had come back from engagin’ of ’em. His appetite all came back, powerfully. He eat a feerful dinner. His restlessness, and oneasyness, had disappeared; his affectionate demeanor all returned. He would have acted spoony, if he had so much as a crumb of encouragement from me. But, I didn’t encourage him. There was a loftiness and majesty in my mean, (caused by my principles), that almost awed him. I looked firstrate, and acted so.

And, Josiah Allen, as I have said, how highlarious he was. He wus goin’ to make so much money by ’em. Says he: “Besides the happiness we shall enjoy with ’em, the almost perfect bliss, jest think of four dollars a week apiece for the man and wife, and two dollars apiece for the children.”

“Lemme see,” says he, dreamily. “Twice four is eight, and no orts to carry; four times two is eight, and eight and eight is sixteen—sixteen dollars a week! Why, Samantha,” says he, “that will support us. There hain’t no need of our ever liftin’ our fingers agin, if we can only keep ’em right with us, always.”

“Who is goin’ to cook and wait on ’em?” says I, almost coldly. Not real cold, but sort o’ coolishlike. For I hain’t one, when I tackle a cross, to go carryin’ it along, groanin’ and cryin’ out loud, all the way. No, if I can’t carry it along, without makin’ too much fuss, I’ll drop it and tackle another one. So, as I say, my tone wuzn’t frigid; but, sort o’ cool-like.

“Who’ll wait on them?” says I.

“Get a girl, get two girls,” says Josiah. Says he: “Think of sixteen dollars a week. You can keep a variety of hired girls, you kin, on that. Besides the pure happiness we are going to enjoy with ’em, we can have everything we want. Thank fortune, Samantha, we have now got a competency.”

“Wal,” says I, in the same coolish tones, or pretty nigh the same, “time will tell.”

Wal, they came on a Friday mornin’, on the five o’clock train. Josiah had to meet ’em to the depot, and he felt so afraid that he should miss ’em, and somebody else would undermind him, and get ’em as boarders, that he wus up about three o’clock; and went out and milked by candlelight, so’s to be sure to be there in season.

And I had to get up, and cook his breakfast, before daylight; feelin’ like a fool, too, for he had kept me awake all night, a-most, a-walkin’ ’round the house, a-lookin’ at the clock, to see what time it wus; and, if he said to me once, he said thirty times durin’ the night:

“It would be jest my luck to have somebody get in ahead of me to the cars, and undermind me at the last minute, and get ’em away from us.”

Says I, in a dry tone (not as dry as I had used sometimes, but dryish):

“I guess there won’t be no danger, Josiah.”

Wal, at about a-quarter to seven he driv’ up with ’em; a tall, waspish-lookin’ woman, and four children; the man they said wouldn’t be there till Saturday night. I thought the woman had a singular look to her: I thought so when I first sot my eyes on her. And the oldest boy, about thirteen years old, he looked awful curious. I thought, to myself, as they walked up to the house, side by side, that I never, in all my hull life, seed a waspisher and more spindliner-lookin’ woman and a curiouser, stranger-lookin’ boy. The three children that come along behind ’em, seemed to be pretty much of a size, and looked healthy, and full of witchcraft, as we found afterward, they indeed was.

Wal, I had a hard tussle of it, through the day, to cook and do for ’em. Their appetites wus tremendous, ’specially the woman and oldest boy. They wuzn’t healthy appetites, I could see that in a minute. Their eyes would look holler and hungry, and they would look voraciously at the empty, deep dishes, and tureens, after they had eat them all empty—eat enough for four men.

Why, it did beat all: Josiah looked at me, in silent wonder and dismay, as he see the vittles disappear before the woman and boy. The other three children eat about as common, healthy children do: about twice what Josiah and me did. But there wuzn’t nothin’ mysterious about ’em. But, the woman and Bill—that was the biggest boy’s name—they made me feel curious; curiouser than I had ever felt. For, truly, I thought to myself, if their legs and arms hain’t holler, how do they hold it?

It wus, to me, a new and interestin’ spectacle, to be studied over, and philosophized upon; but, to Josiah, it was a canker, as I see the very first meal. I could see by the looks of his face, that them two appetites of theirn was sunthin’ he hadn’t reckoned and calculated on; and I could see, plain, havin’ watched the changes of my companion’s face, as close as astronimers watch the moon, I could see them two appetites of theirn wus a-wearin’ on him.

Wal, I thought mebby they was kinder starved out, comin’ right from a city boardin’-house, and a few of my good meals would quell ’em down. But, no; instead of growin’ lighter, them two appetites of theirn seemed, if possible, to grow consuminer and consuminer, though I cooked lavish and profuse, as I always did. They devoured everything before ’em, and looked hungry at the plates and tablecloth.

And Josiah looked on in perfect agony, I knew. (He is very close). But he didn’t say nothin’. And it seemed so awful mysterious to me, that I would get perfectly lost, and by the side of myself, a-reasonin’ and philosophizin’ on it, whether their legs wus holler, or not holler. And, if they wus holler, how they could walk ’round on ’em; and if they wuzn’t holler, where the vittles went to.

“Will they never stop eatin’?” said Josiah, and he got madder every day. He vowed he would charge extra.

It was after we went to bed, that he said this. But I told him to talk low; for her room wus jest over ours, and says I, in a low but firm axent:

“Don’t you do no such thing, Josiah Allen. Do you realize how it would look? What a sound it would have in the community? You agreed to take ’em for four dollars, and they’d call it mean.”

“Wal!” he hollered out. “Do you s’pose I am goin’ to board people for nothin’? I took men and wimmen and children to board. I didn’t agree to board elephants and rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses and whales and sea serpents. And I won’t neither, unless I have my pay for it; it wuzn’t in the bill.”

“Do you keep still, Josiah Allen,” I whispered. “She’ll hear you calling her a sea-serpent.”

“Let her hear me. I say, agin, it wuzn’t in the bill!” He hollered this out louder than ever. I s’pose he meant it wuzn’t in the bargain; but he was nearly delirious. He is close, I can’t deny it; nearly tight.

But, jest that minute, before I could say a word, we heard an awful noise, right over our heads. It sounded as if the hull roof had fallen in.

Says Josiah, leaping out of bed, “The old chimbley has fell in.”

“No!” says I, follerin’ him, “It is the roof.”

And we both started for up stairs, on a run.

I sent him back from the head of the stairs, howsomever; for, in the awful fright he hadn’t realized his condition, and wuzn’t dressed. I waited for him at the top of the stairway; for, to tell you the truth, I dassent go on. He hurried-on his clothes, and he went on ahead, and there she lay; there Miss Danks wus, on the floor, in a historical fit.

Josiah, thinkin’ she was dead, run in and ketched her up, and went to put her on the bed; and she, just as they will in historicks, clawed right into his hair, and tore out almost all he had on the nigh side. Then she struck him a feerful blow on the off eye and made it black and blue for a week. She didn’t know what she was about. She wuzn’t to blame, though the hair was a great loss to him, and I won’t deny it. Wal, we stood over her, most all night, to keep the breath of life in her. And the oldest boy bein’ skairt, it brought on some fits he wus in the habit of havin’, a sort of fallin’ fits. He’d fall anywhere; he fell onto Josiah twice that night, almost knocked him down; he was awful large of his age. Dredful big and fat. It seemed as if there was sunthin’ wrong about his heft, it was so oncommon hefty, for a boy of his age. He looked bloated. His eyes, which was a pale blue, seemed to be kinder sot back into his head, and his cheeks stood out below, some like balloons. And his mouth wus kinder open a good deal of the time, as if it was hard work for him to breathe. He breathed thick and wheezy, dredful oncomfortable. His complexion looked bad, too; sallow, and sort o’ tallery lookin’. He acted dreadful lazy, and heavy at the best of times, and in them fits he seemed to be as heavy as lead.

Wal, that wus the third night after they got there; and, from that night, as long as they staid, she had the historicks, frequent and violent; and Bill had his fallin’ fits; and you wouldn’t believe unless you see it, how many things that boy broke, in fallin’ on ’em in them fits. It beat all, how unfortunate he wus. They always come onto him unexpected, and it seemed as if they always come onto him while he wus in front of sunthin’ to smash all to bits. I can’t begin to tell how many things he destroyed, jest by them fits: finally, I says to Josiah, one day, says I:

“Did you ever see, Josiah Allen, anybody so unlucky as that boy is in his fits: seems as if he’ll break everything in the house, if it goes on.”

Says he: “It’s a pity he don’t break his cussed neck.”

I don’t know as I wus ever more tried with Josiah Allen than I wus then, or ever give him a firmer, eloquenter lecture, against swearin’. But, in my heart I couldn’t help pityin’ him, for I knew Bill had jest fell onto some tomato-plants, of a extra kind, and set out, and broke ’em short off. And it wus only the day before, that he fell, as he was lookin’ at the colt; it was only a week old; but it was a uncommon nice one, and Josiah thought his eyes of it; and Bill wus admirin’ of it; there wuzn’t nothin’ ugly about him; but a fit come on, and he fell right onto the colt, and the colt, not expectin’ of it, and bein’ entirely unprepared, fell flat down, and the boy on it. And the colt jest lived, that is all. Josiah says it never will be worth anythin’; he thinks it broke sunthin’ inside.

As I said, there wuzn’t nothin’ ugly about the boy. He’d be awful sorry, when he broke things, and flatted ’em all out a-fallin’ on ’em. All I blamed him for, wus in prowlin’ ’round so much. I thought then, and I think still, that seein’ he knew he had ’em, and wus liable to have ’em, he’d have done better to have kept still, and not tried to get ’round so much. But, his mother said he felt restless and oneasy. I couldn’t help likin’ the boy. And when he fell right into my bread, that wus a-risin’, and spilt the hull batch—and when he fell unto the parlor table, and broke the big parlor lamp, and everything else that wus on it—and when he fell onto a chicken-coop, and broke it down, and killed a hull brood of chickens—and more than fifty other things, jest about like ’em—why, I didn’t feel like scoldin’ him. I s’pose it wus my lofty principles that boyed me up; them and the thought that would come to me, another time; mebby Josiah Allen will heer to me, another time; mebby he will get sick of summer boarders, and takin’ of ’em in.

THE SUFFERENS OF NATHAN SPOONER.

Says I, “Josiah Allen, if there was a heavy fine to pay for shettin’ up doors, you wouldn’t never lose a cent of your property in that way,” and says I clutchin’ my lap full of carpet rags with a firmer grip, for truly, they wus flutterin’ like banners in the cold breeze, “if you don’t want me to blow away, Josiah Allen, shet up that door.”

“Oh, shaw! Samantha, you won’t blow away, you are too hefty. It would take a Hurrycane, and a Simon, too, to tackle, and lift you.”

“Simon who?” says I, in cold axents, cauzed partly by my frigid emotions and partly by the chilly blast, and partly by his darin’ to say any man could take me up and carry me away.

“Oh! the Simons they had on the desert; I’ve hearn Thomas J. read about ’em. They’ll blow camels away, and everything.”

Says I, dreamily, “Who’d have thought, twenty yeers ago, to heard that man a-courtin’ me, and callin’ me a zephire, and a pink posy, and a angel, that he’d ever live to see the day he’d call me a camel.”

“I hain’t called you a camel. I only meant that you was hefty, and camels wus hefty. And it would take a Simon or two to lift you ’round, either on you.”

“Wall,” says I, in frigid tones, “what I want to know is, are you a-goin’ to shet that door?”

“Yes, I be, jist as quick as I can change my clothes. I don’t want to fodder in these new briches.”

I rose with dignity, or as much dignity as I could lay holt of half bent, tryin’ to keep ten or twelve quarts of carpet rags from spillin’ over the floor—and went and shet the door myself, which I might have known enough to done first place and saved time and breath. For shettin’ of in the doors is truly a accomplishment that Josiah Allen never will master. I have tuched him up in lots of things, sense we wus married, but in that branch of education he has been too much for me; I about gin up.

In the course of ten or fifteen moments, Josiah came out of the bed-room, lookin’ as peaceful and pleasant as you may please, with his hands in his pantaloons pockets searchin’ their remote depths, and says he, in a off-hand, careless way:

“I’ll be hanged, if there hain’t a letter for you, Samantha.”

“How many weeks have you carried it ’round, Josiah Allen?” says I. “It would scare me if you should give me a letter before you had carried it ’round in your pockets a month or so.”

“Oh! I guess I only got this two or three days ago. I meant to handed it to you the first thing when I got home. But I hain’t had on these old breeches sense that day I went to mill.”

“Three weeks ago, to-day,” says I, in almost frosty axents, as I opened my letter.

“Wall,” says Josiah, cheerfully, “I knew it wuzn’t long, anyway!”

I glanced my gray eye down my letter, and says I, in agitated tones:

“She that was Alzina Ann Allen is comin’ here a-visitin’. She wrote me three weeks ahead, so’s to have me prepared. And here she is liable to come in on us any minute, now, and ketch us all unprepared,” says I. “I wouldn’t have had it happen for a ten-cent bill, to had one of the relations, on your side, come and ketch me in such a condition. Then the curtains are all down in the spare room. I washed ’em yesterday, and they hain’t ironed. And the carpet in the settin’-room up to mend; and not a mite of fruit cake in the house, and she a-comin’ here to-day. I am mortified ’most to death, Josiah Allen. And if you’d give me that letter, I should have hired help, and got everything done. I should think your conscience would smart like a burn, if you have got a conscience, Josiah Allen.”

“Wall, less have a little sunthin’ to eat, Samantha, and I’ll help ’round.”

“Help! What’ll you do, Josiah Allen?”

“Oh! I’ll do the barn chores, and help all I can. I guess you’d better cook a little of that canned sammon, I got to Janesville.”

Says I, coldly, “I believe, Josiah Allen, if you wus on your way to the gallus, you make ’em stop and get vittles for you, meat vittels, if you could.”

I didn’t say nothin’ more, for, as the greatest poets has sung, “the least said, the soonest mended.” But I ’rose, and with outward calmness, put on the tea kettle and potatoes, and opened the can of salmon, and jist as I put that over the stove, with some sweet cream and butter, if you’ll believe it, that very minute, she that was Alzina Ann Allen drove right up to the door, and come in.

You could have knocked me down with a hen’s feather (as it were) my feelin’s wus such; but I concealed ’em as well as I could, and advanced to the door, and says I:

“How do you do, Miss Richerson?”—she is married to Jenothen Richerson, old Daniel Richerson’s oldest boy.

She is a tall, “spindlin’ lookin’” women, light complected, sandy-haired, and with big, light blue eyes. I hadn’t see her for nineteen yeers, but she seemed dredful tickled to see me, and says she:

“You look younger, Samantha, than you did the first time I ever seen you.”

“Oh, no!” says I, “that can’t be, Alzina Ann, for that is in the neighborhood of thirty years ago.”

Says she, “It is true as I live and breathe; you look younger and handsomer than I ever see you look.”

I didn’t believe it, but I thought it wouldn’t look well to dispute her any more, so I let it go; and mebby she thought she had convinced me that I did look younger than I did, when I was eighteen or twenty. But I only said, “That I didn’t feel so young anyway. I had spells of feelin’ mauzer.”

She took off her things, she was dressed up awful slick, and Josiah helped bring in her trunk. And I told her just how mortified I wus about Josiah’s forgettin’ her letter, and her ketchin’ me unprepared. But, good Lord! she told me that she never in her hull life see a house in the order mine wus, never, and she had seen thousands and thousands of different houses.

Says I, “I feel worked up, and almost mortified, about my settin’-room carpet bein’ up.”

But she held up both hands (they wus white as snow, and all covered with rings). And says she, “If there is one thing that I love to see, Samantha, more than another, it is to see a settin’-room carpet up, it gives such a sort of a free, noble look to a room.”

Says I, “The curtains are down in the spare bed-room, and I am almost entirely out of cookin’.”

Says she, “If I had my way, I never would have a curtain up to a window. The sky always looks so pure and innocent somehow. And cookin’,” says she, with a look of complete disgust on her face. “Why, I fairly despise cookin’; what’s the use of it?” says she, with a sweet smile.

“Why,” says I, reesonably, “if it wasn’t for cookin’ vittles and eatin’ ’em, guess we shouldn’t stand it a great while, none on us.”

I didn’t really like the way she went on. Never, never, through my hull life, was I praised up by anybody as I wus by her, durin’ the three days that she stayed with us. And one mornin’, when she had been goin’ on dretfully, that way, I took Josiah out one side, and told him; “I couldn’t bear to hear her go on so, and I believed there was sunthin’ wrong about it.”

“Oh, no,” says he. “She means every word she says,” says he. “She is one of the loveliest creeters this earth affords. She is most a angel. Oh!” says he, dreamily, “what a sound mind she has got.”

Says I, “I heard her tellin’ you this mornin’, that you wus one of the handsomest men she ever laid eyes on, and didn’t look a day over twenty-one.”

“Well,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect. “She thinks so,” and says he, in firm axents, “I am a good lookin’ feller, Samantha. A crackin’ good-lookin’ chap, but I never could make you own up to it.”

I didn’t say nothin’, but my grey eye wandered up, and lighted on his bald head. It rested there searchinly, and very coldly for a moment or two, and then says I, sternly; “Bald heads and beauty don’t go together worth a cent. But you wus always vain, Josiah Allen.”

Says he, “What if I wus?” and says he, “She thinks different from what you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye on her head for beauty. She is very smart, very. And what she says, she means.”

“Wall,” says I, “I am glad you are so happy in your mind. But, mark my words, you won’t always feel so neat about it, Josiah Allen, as you do now.”

Says he, in a cross, surly way; “I guess I know what I do know.”

I hain’t a yaller hair in the hull of my foretop, but I thought to myself, I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s eyes opened; for I knew as well as I knew my name was Josiah Allen’s wife, that that woman didn’t think Josiah wus so pretty and beautiful. But I didn’t see how I was goin’ to convince him, for he wouldn’t believe me when I told him, she wus a makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so there it wus. But I hold firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by her.

That very afternoon we wus invited to tea, that wus Sylphina Allen’s, Miss Nathen Spooner’s, us and Alzina Ann Allen. Sylphina didn’t use to be the right sort of a girl. She wus a kind of helpless, improvenden thing, and threw herself away on a worthless, drunken feller, that she married for her first husband, though Nathen Spooner wus a dyin’ for her, even then. But when her drunken husband died, and she wus left with that boy of hers, about six years old, she up and jined the Methodist church. I didn’t use to associate with her at all, and Josiah didn’t want me to, though she wus a second cousin on his father’s side. But folks began to make much of her. So I and Josiah did everything for her we could, to help her do well, and be likely. And last fall, she wus married to Nathen Spooner, who hadn’t forgotten her in all this time.

They make a likely couple, and I shouldn’t wonder if they do well. Nathen Spooner is bashful; he looks as if he wanted to sink if any one speaks to him; but Sylphina is proud-spirited and holds him up.

They hain’t got a great deal to do with, and Sylphina bein’ kind o’ afraid of Alzina Ann, sent over and borrowed her mother-in-law’s white-handled knives, and, unbeknown to Alzina Ann, I carried her over some tea-spoons, and other things for her comfort, for if Sylphina means to do better, and try to git along, and be a provider, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.

Wall, no sooner had we got seated over to Mrs. Spooner’ses, than Alzina Ann begun:

“How much!—how much that beautiful little boy looks like you, Mr. Spooner,” she cried, and she would look first at Nathen, and then at the child, with that enthusiastic look of her’s.

Sylphina’s face wus red as blood, for the child looked as like her first husband as two peas, and she knowed that Nathen almost hated the sight of the boy, and only had him in the house for her sake. And truly, if Nathen Spooner could have sunk down through the floor into the seller, right into the potato bin or pork barrel, it would have been one of the most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed. I could see that by his countenance.

If she had just said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann never’ll do that; she had to enlarge in her idees, and she would ask Sylphina if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look to him that Nathen had. And Sylphina would stammer, and look annoyed more’n ever, and get as red in the face as a red woollen shirt. And then Alzina Ann, looking at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathen’s, which was a sort of Roman one, and the best feetur in his face, as Josiah says, would ask Nathen if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy resembled his pa. And Nathen would look this way and that, and kind o’ frown; and it did seem as if we couldn’t keep him out of the seller, to save our lives. And there it wuz.

Wall, when it came supper time, more wuz in store for him. Sylphina, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathen ask a blessin’. But he, bein’ so uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they had company. He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on him. He looked as if he would sink all the while Sylphina wus settin’ the table, for he knew what wus before him. He seemed to feel worse and worse all the time, and when she wus a-settin’ the chairs round the table, he looked so bad that I didn’t know but he would have to have help to get to the table. And he’d give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks to Sylphina that ever wus, but she shook her head at him, and looked decided, and then he’d look as if he’d wilt right down again.

So when we got set down to the table, Sylphina gave him a real firm look and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and Sylphina and me and Josiah put on a becomin’ look for the occasion, and shet up our’n, when, all of a sudden, Alzina Ann, she never asked a blessin’ in her own house, and forgot other folks did, leastways that Nathen did. Alzina Ann, I say, spoke out in a real loud, admirin’ tone, and says she:

“There! I will say it I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in my hull life. White-handled knives is suthin’ I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But never did I see any that wus so perfectly beautiful as these ’ere.”

And she held out her knife at arm’s length, and looked at it admirin’ly, and almost rapturously.

Nathen looked bad—dretful bad, but we didn’t none on us reply to her, and she seemed to sort o’ quiet down, and Sylphina gave Nathen another look, and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she, and me and Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathen wus just a-beginnin’ agin, when Alzina Ann broke out afresh, and says:

“What wouldn’t I give, if I could own some knives like them? What a proud and happy woman it would make me.”

That roasted us all up agin, and never did I see—unless it wus on a funeral occasion—a face look as Nathen’s face looked. Nobody could have blamed him if he had gin up, then, and not made another effert. But Sylphina, bein’ so awful determined to do jist right, and start right in the married life, she winked to Nathen agin, a real sharp and encouragin’ wink, and shet up her eyes, and Josiah and I done as she done, and shet up our’n.

And Nathen (feelin’ as if he must sink,) got all ready to begin agin. He had jest got his mouth opened, when says Alzina Ann, in that rapturous way of her’n:

“Do tell me, Sylphina, how much did you give for these knives, and where did you get ’em?”

Then it wus Sylphina’s turn to feel as if she must sink, for being so proud sperited, it wus like pullin’ out a sound tooth, to tell Alzina Ann they wus borrowed. But bein’ so set in tryin’ to do right, she would have up and told her. But I, feelin’ sorry for her, branched right off, and asked Nathen “if he lived out to vote Republican, or Democrat, or Greenback.” So we had no blessin’ asked after all, that day.