She wuz a settin" on the bench, and a writin" about it, she was a writin" on the bench in two different ways. Curius, haint it?
But to resoom. He immegetly fell in love with her. And he got a feller who wuz a boardin" to his boardin" place to interduce him to Ardelia"s relative, Mr. Pixley, and Mr. Pixley interduced him to Ardelia. He told Ardelia"s relatives the same story - That his father wuz a banker, that he owned a bank and wuz doin" a heavy business.
Wall, I watched that young chap, and watched him close, and I see there wuz one thing about him that could be depended on, he wuz truthful.
He seemed almost morbid on the subject, and would dispute himself half a hour, to get a thing or a story he wuz tellin" jest exactly right. But he drinked; that I know for I know the symptoms.
Coffee can"t blind the eyes of her that waz once Smith, nor peppermint cast a mist before "em. My nose could have took its oath, if noses wuz ever put onto a bar of Justice - my nose would have gin its firm testimony that Bial Flamburg drinked.
And there wuz that sort of a air about him, that I can"t describe exactly - a sort of a half offish, half familier and wholly disagreeable mean, that can be onderstood but not described. No, you can"t picture that liniment, but you can be affected by it.
Wall, Bial had it.
And I kep" on a not likin" him, and kep" stiddy onwards a likin"
Abram Gee. I couldn"t help it, nor did"nt want to. And I looked out constant to ketch him in some big story that would break him right down in Ardelia"s eyes, for I knew if she had been brought up on any one commandment more"n another, it wuz the one ag"inst lyin". She hated lyin".
She had been brought up on the hull of the commandments but on that one in particeler; she wuz brung up sharp but good. But not one lie could I ketch him in. And he stuck to it, that his father wuz a banker and doin" a heavy business.
Wall, it kep" on, she a goin" with him through ambition, for I see plain, by signs I knoo, that she didn"t love him half as well as she did Abram. And I felt bad, dretful bad, to set still and see Ambition ondoin" of her. For oft and oft she would speak to me of Bial"s father"s bank and the heft of the business he wuz a doin".
And I finally got so worked up in my mind that I gin a sly hint to Abram Gee, that if he ever wanted to get Ardelia Tutt, he had better make a summer trip to Saratoga. I never told Ardelia what I had done, but trusted to a overrulin" destiny, that seems to enrap babys, and lunatiks, and soft little wimmen, when their heads get kinder turned by a man, and to Abram"s honest face when she should compare it with Bial Flamburg"s, and to Abram"s pure, sweet breath with that mixture of stale cigars, tobacco, beer, and peppermint.
But Abram wrote back to me that his mother wuz a lyin" at the p"int of death with a fever - that his sister Susan wuz sick a bed with the same fever and couldn"t come a nigh her and he couldn"t leave what might be his mother"s death-bed. And he sez, if Ardelia had forgot him in so short a time, mebby it wuz the best thing he could do, to try and forget her. Anyway, he wouldn"t leave his dying mother for anything or anybody.
That wuz Abram Gee all over, a doin" his duty every time by bread and humanity. But he added a postscript and it wuz wrote in a agitated hand - that jest as soon as his mother got so he could leave her, he should come to Saratoga.
IX.
JOSIAH "S FLIRTATIONS.
They say there is a sight of flirtin" done at Saratoga. I didn"t hear so much about it as Josiah did, naturally there are things that are talked of more amongst men than women. Night after night he would come home and tell me how fashionable it wuz, and pretty soon I could see that he kinder wanted to follow the fashion.
I told him from the first on"t that he"d better let it entirely alone. Says I, "Josiah Allen, you wouldn"t never carry it through successful if you should undertake it -- and then think of the wickedness on"t."
But he seemed sot. He said "it wuz more fashionable amongst married men and wimmen, than the more single ones," he said "it wuz dretful fashionable amongst pardners."`
"Wall," says I, "I shall have, nothin" to do with it, and I advise you, if you know when you are well off, to let it entirely alone."
"Of course," says he, fiercely, "You needn"t have nothin" to do with it. It is nothin" you would want to foller up. And I would ruther see you sunk into the ground, or be sunk myself, than to see you goin" into it. Why," says he, savagely, "I would tear a man lim from lim, if I see him a tryin" to flirt with you."
(Josiah Allen worships me.) "But," says he, more placider like, "men have to do things sometimes, that they know is too hard for their pardners to do -- men sometimes feel called upon to do things that their pardners don"t care about -- that they haint strong enough to tackle. Wimmen are fragile creeters anyway."
"Oh, the fallacy of them arguments -- and the weakness of "em.
But I didn"t say nothin" only to reiterate my utterance, that "if he went into it, he would have to foller it up alone, that he musn"t expect any help from me."
"Oh no!" says he. "Oh! certainly not."
His tone wuz very genteel, but there seemed to be sumthin" strange in it. And I looked at him pityin"ly over my specks. The hull idea on it wuz extremely distasteful to me, this talk about flirtin", and etc., at our ages, and with our stations in the Jonesville meetin" house, and with our grandchildren.
But I see from day to day that he wuz a hankerin" after it, and I almost made up my mind that I should have to let him make a trial, knowin" that experience wuz the best teacher, and knowin" that his morals wuz sound, and he wuz devoted to me, and only went into the enterprize because he thought it wuz fashionable.
There wuz a young English girl a boardin" to the same place we did. She dressed some like a young man, carried a cane, etc. But she wuz one of the upper 10, and wuz as pretty as a picture, and I see Josiah had kinder sot his eyes on her as bein" a good one to try his experiment with. He thought she wuz beautiful. But good land! I didn"t care. I liked her myself. But I could see, though he couldn"t see it, that she wuz one of the girls who would flirt with the town pump, or the meetin" house steeple, if she couldn"t get n.o.body else to flirt with. She wuz born so, but I suppose ontirely unbeknown to her when she wuz born.
Wall, Josiah Allen would set and look at her by the hour -- dretful admirin". But good land! I didn"t care. I loved to look at her myself. And then too I had this feelin" that his morals wuz sound. But after awhile, I could see, and couldn"t help seein", that he wuz a tryin" in his feeble way to flirt with her.
And I told him kindly, but firmly, "that it wuz somethin" that I hated to see a goin" on."
But he says, "Well, dumb it all, Samantha, if anybody goes to a fashionable place, they ort to try to be fashionable. "Taint nothin" I want to do, and you ort to know it."
And I says in pityin" axents but firm, "If you don"t want to, Josiah, I wouldn"t, fashion or no fashion."
But I see I couldn"t convince him, and there happened to be a skercity of men jest then -- and he kep" it up, and it kep" me on the key veav, as Maggie says, when she is on the tenter hooks of suspense.
I felt bad to see it go on, not that I wuz jealous, no, my foretop lay smooth from day to day, not a jealous hair in it, not one -- but I felt sorry for my companion. I see that while the endurin"
of it wuz hard and tejus for him (for truly he was not a addep at the business; it come tuff, feerful tuff on him), the endin" wuz sure to be harder. And I tried to convince him, from a sense of duty, that she wuz makin" fun of him -- he had told me lots of the pretty things she had said to him -- and out of principle I told him that she didn"t mean one word of "em. But I couldn"t convince him, and as is the way of pardners, after I had sot the reasen and the sense before him, and he wouldn"t hear to me, why then I had to set down and bear it. Such is some of the trials of pardners?
Wall, it kep" agoin" on, and a goin" on, and I kep" a hatin" to see it, for if anybody has got to flirt, which I am far from approvin" of, but if I have got to see it a goin" on, I would fain see it well done, and Josiah"s efforts to flirt wuz like an effort of our old mair to play a tune on the melodian, no grace in it, no system, nor comfort to him, nor me.
I s"pose the girl got some fun out of it; I hope she did, for if she didn"t it wuz a wearisome job all round.
Wall, a week or so rolled on, and it wuz still in progress. And one day an old friend of ours, Miss Ezra Balch, from the east part of Jonesville, come to see me. She come to Saratoga for the rheumatiz, and wuz gettin" well fast, and Ezra was gettin" entirely cured of biles, for which he had come, carbunkles.
Wall, she invited Josiah and me to take a ride with "em, and we both accepted of it, and at the appointed time I wuz ready to the minute, down on the piazza, with my brown cotton gloves on, and my mantilly hung gracefully over my arm. But at the last minute, Josiah Allen said "he couldn"t go."
I says "Why can"t you go?"
"Oh," he says, kinder drawin" up his collar, and smoothin" down his vest, "Oh, I have got another engagement."
He looked real high-headed, and I says to him:
"Josiah Allen didn"t you promise Druzilla Balch that you would go with her and Ezra to-day?"
"Wall yes," says he, "but I can"t."
"Why not?" says I.
"Wall, Samantha, though they are well meanin", good people, they haint what you may call fashionable, they haint the upper 10."
Says I, "Josiah Allen you have fell over 15 cents in my estimation, sense we have begun talkin", you won"t go with "em because they haint fashionable. They are good, honest Christian Methodists, and have stood by you and me many a time, in times of trouble, and now," says I, "you turn against "em because they haint fashionable." Says I, "Josiah Allen where do you think you"ll go to?"
"Oh, probable down through Congress Park, and we may walk up as fur as the Indian Encampment. I feel kinder mauger to-day, and my corns ache feerful." (His boots wuz that small that they wuz sights to behold, sights!) "We probably shan"t walk fur," says he.
I see how "twuze in a minute. That English girl had asked him to walk with her, and my pardner had broken a solemn engagement with Ezra and Druzilla Balch to go a walkin" with her. I see how "twuz, but I sot in silence and one of the big rockin" chairs, and didn"t say nothin".
Finally he says, with a sort of a anxious look onto his foreward:
"You don"t feel bad, do you Samantha? You haint jealous, are you?"