she was awfully stuck up, and got into all kind of finefied notions,
arter her par, the old shoemaker, died and left her his arnings. She was
an awful smart critter though, and had a sort of a notion which side her
bread was buttered on, as well as anybody you ever sot eyes on. Instid
of spending the seven hundred dollars, which the stingy old coot of a
shoemaker left behind him, all in hard chink, she sot up a milliner's
and dress-maker's store in the Bowery; and it raly would have done the
old chap's ghost good, to have seen how she contrived to turn the
sixpences and half dollars that he'd been hoarding up so long in an old
pepper-and-salt stocking, for fear of losing 'em. A tarnal snug bisness
Miss Josephine Burgess was a doing, I can tell you. If she didn't know
how to make things gibe, there wasn't a gal in the Bowery that did, you
may be sartin. She raly had a talent for the bisness--a sort of genius
in the bonnet way. With her own harnsome leetle fingers she cut and
snipped and twisted and pinned on the shiney stuff and ribbons to all
the caps and bonnets turned off by the ten peeked looking thin young
girls that worked twelve hours out of every twenty-four, in a garret
bed-room, in the back of the house, where Miss Josephine Burgess kept
her store. Her thin peeked looking young girls might have enjoyed
themselves if they only had a mind to! There never was such a prospect
as they had to look upon when they got tired. If they jest turned their
bright eyes up to get a peek at the sky, there was a hull regiment of
chimnies, all a sending out smoke like a company of Florida sogers; and
if they looked down, there were ever so many backyards cut up into sort
of pig pens, with lots of bleech boxes a pouring out the brimstone
smoke, and old straw bonnets strung out to dry, that made every thing
look comfortable and like live. Miss Josephine Burgess was a purty good
boss considerin. She let her gals have half an hour to eat their dinners
in, and if any on 'em didn't happen to get to the shop at seven o'clock
in the morning she never docked off more than half their day's wages.
She was rather apt to get out of temper once in a while; but then insted
of blowing the gals up, as some cross grained critters will, she only
blew up their work, and made them du it all over agin; which was a more
easy way of spitting out spite, and putting a few coppers into her own
pocket; for when it took half of a day to du the work, and another half
to alter it, she only made the poor gals lose a half day's wages; and if
they didn't like that she'd al'rs give them leave to get a better place;
which, considering that half the sewin gals in York are always out of
work, was raly very good natured and considerate in her. Besides this
she had a good many ginerous leetle ways of turning a copper. When the
peeked, haggard young critters came down from the work-room, at twelve
o'clock Saturday night--for Miss Josephine Burgess was awful pious, it
wasn't only once in a great while that she made the gals work over into
the Sabberday morning--as she paid them their wages Miss Josephine
always found out that some mistake had been made in the work--a piece of
silk cut into, or a bit of leghorn burnt brown in the bleaching, which
melted down the twenty shillings which they ought to have had apiece, to
eighteen, or mebby two dollars; all of which must sartinly have been to
the satisfaction and amusement of the pale troop of gals, who had two
dollars to pay for board, besides clothes and washing to get along with,
out of the twenty-five cents that were left; and if they didn't seem to
like it, Miss Josephine wasn't agoing to fret her herself about that.
She al'rs contrived to tucker them out with hard work before she
settled up, so that there was no fear of their saying much agin what
she took of their wages. Sometimes the tears would come into their eyes;
and some on 'em that hadn't no hum to go tu, except the leetle garret
bed-rooms which they were over head and ears in debt for, would burst
out and sob as if they hadn't a friend on arth; but crying is a good
deal like drinking--it hurts them that take to it more than it does
anybody else. Miss Josephine Burgess didn't care a copper for tears and
sobs; she'd got used to 'em.
Miss Josephine Burgess raly had a talent for her bisness. Nobody ever
learned so many prudent ways of laying up money. She used to dress up
like a queen, and her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes were the genuine
things and genteel all over. Eenamost every Sabberday she would go to
meeting in a branfire new bonnet; and if some of her good natured
customers that staid to hum because theirs warn't finished, had one just
like it come to the door on Monday morning, the leetle gal that waited
for the band-box only had to say, that she sarched and sarched on
Saturday night and couldn't find the house. It doesn't hurt a dashing
bonnet to wear it eenajest once. Miss Josephine never kept her customers
a waiting over more than one Sunday, only when they were very busy or
paid beforehand. Folks that are always a minding other people's business
used to talk about Miss Josephine, and call her extravagant and stuck
up; but the varmints didn't know what they were a talking about more
than nothing. If she had her silks and satins made up every month, the
making cost eenamost nothing. The working gals always expected to sit up
till twelve o'clock Saturday nights in hurrying times; and when it
wasn't hurrying time Miss Josephine had always a frock to finish off for
herself or something of that sort. The frocks answered jest as well to
make bonnets out on, arter she'd dashed out in 'em once or twice, and
the sleeves and waist cut up scrumptiously for ruffles and furbelows.
Miss Josephine Burgess understood the soft sodder principle like a book.
She had a way of bantering off the bonnets and gimcracks that was raly
curious. If a customer happened to take a notion to having color and
shape of a bonnet, she would insist upon it that she should try it on
afore the glass; and while the lady was a gittin good natured, and a
beginning to feel stuck up with the looks of herself, Miss Josephine
would twist about the bows, and spread out the ribbands, and tell how
very nice it all was, the face and the bonnet agreed so well. She had
jest _that_ face in her mind when the bonnet was under way--so
delicate--so graceful--so--so--_very_ handsome. Some people hadn't the
least notion of harmony and grace. It raly did her heart good to make
things for a lady who knew which was which. She always kept them sort of
hats for her most fashionable customers. She wouldn't have them get
common for anything--raly she couldn't tell how that one got out on the
counter; but shop gals were the most careless critters on
arth--sometimes she did feel as if she couldn't git along with 'em--but
in them hard times it raly went agin her heart to turn 'em away, so she
got along as well as she could.
Here Miss Josephine Burgess would break sharp off and let the customer
look at herself in the glass, only just throwing in a word once in a
while to help along. Then she'd pull the bonnet a leetle for'ed, tuck
away the lady's curls under it, and stick her own head a one side to
"take an observation;" arter that she'd kinder put up both hands and say
"beautiful!" jest as if the word bust right out, all she could do to
help it. By-am-by Miss Josephine Burgess would sort of fold her hands
over the black apron, and step back a leetle to give her customer time
to twistify afore the glass, and wonder whether the milliner meant the
bonnet or her face, or both together, when she said "beautiful." The
hull of it eenamost always tarminated by Miss Josephine Burgess selling
the bonnet, and the lady's swimming off chuck full and brimming over
with soft sodder, like a darn'd turkey-gobbler, stuffed out with Injun
meal.
If a customer did _not_ take a notion to the bonnet, or seemed to hanker
arter something else, Miss Josephine had nothing to do but to alter her
tune for another sort of a dancer.
"Folks with homely faces," sez she, "ought to be squeamish about
colors;" in fact they couldn't help it, if they wanted to look decent;
but some folks raly seemed to look harnsome in anything; it was the face
arter all that sot off the bonnet. Some people had such clear skins that
they could bear a bright orange color, and look purty as a pink arter
all. Once in a while Miss Josephine sartinly did overdo the bisness a
leetle, but she almost always made out to trade somehow, without her
customer turned out to be some sly coot of a sister milliner a running
round to hunt up patterns, or some darned critter out a shopping on a
fourpence-ha'penny capital.
Besides tending her shop, and cutting and trimming, and all that, Miss
Josephine Burgess found time to do a leetle courting, over work, with a
finefied sort of a 'pothecary feller that sold doctor stuff over the way
agin her store. But she didn't let this take up much of her time, nor no
sich thing--she wasn't a gal to let her heart run away with her head,
any how they could fix it. While the finefied stuck up leetle 'pothecary
shut up his shop over the way, and sot more'n half the time twisting up
the thread and leetle bits of ribbon that Miss Josephine Burgess snipped
off with a pair of sharp pinted scissors, hitched to her side by a black
watch guard, and kept a puckering up his mouth and a talking darned
finefied nonsense, as sweet as the jujube paste, and the peppermint
drops that he brought in his trousers' pocket, she sot as independent as
a cork-screw, with one foot stuck upon a bonnet block, a twisting up
bows, and a sticking pins and feathers into a heap of silk and millinery
stuff. Once in a while she managed to stick a peppermint drop into her
leetle mouth, and to turn her eyes to the 'pothecary with _sich_ a look,
so soft and killing, it went right straight through his heart, like a
pine skewer through a chunk of butcher's meat.
There was never anything went on so slick as these critters did, arter
they took to hankering arter each other--it raly was better than a play
to see how they got along. The 'pothecary chap was a sneezer at figures.
He'd cyphered thro' Dayboll's Arithmetic three times, and could say off
the multiplication table without stopping to catch breath. So he
sometimes overhauled the milliner's books, not because he wanted to know
any thing about them, but 'cause women folks are so apt to be imposed
on. He writ out her leetle bills, and kept a sort of running notion of
her cash accounts, for she warn't much of a judge of money, and so
always sent her bank bills over to his shop to know whether they were
ginuine or not. She did all these leetle trifles in a delicate genteel
sort of a way, that was sartinly very gratifying and pleasant to the
'pothecary; he raly begun to fat up and grow pussy on the strength on't;
it wouldn't aben human natur if he hadn't.
Miss Josephine Burgess was a setting in her back shop a thinking over
the 'pothecary chap, and the dollars and cents she'd skinned out of the
gals' wages that week, a making them work at half price because the
_times were so bad_, when the 'pothecary came a tip-toeing through the
store looking as tickled as if he'd found a sixpence. He took two ball
tickets out of his vest pocket and held one on 'em out to the milliner,
and stood a bowing and a grinning like a darned babboon till she read
the writin' on it.
"I raly don't know what to say," sez she, "I never have been to the
Tammany hall, and I--I----"
"It'll be the top of the notch, this one," sez the chap, "they're a goin
to be awful partickler who they invite--nothing but the raly genteel who
get tickets, I promise 'em."
Miss Josephine Burgess puckered up her mouth, and said "she didn't know:
she was afeard she might meet with some of the working classes--she----"
"Don't say no--it'll break my heart, it will sartinly," sez the lovyer.
"Don't drive me to takin pison on your account--oh don't."
Miss Josephine kinder started up--gave a sort of a scream--and said she
wouldn't drive the 'pothecary to taking pison, and that she would go the
ball. The minit she said that the leetle chap went right off into a fit
of the dreadful suz: he slumped right down on his marrow bones, and
begun to nibble away like all natur at the four little fingers, that
stuck out of Miss Josephine Burgess's right hand mit.
"Oh, say only jest one thing more, and I shall be so happy, I shall want
to jump out of my skin," sez he, all in a twitteration.
"Oh, dear me, what do you mean? I swanny, I'm all in a fluster," sez
she.
"Here, down on my knees, I ask, I entreat, I conjure, most beautiful of
wimmen folks," sez he, "that you be my partner, not only at the ball,
but through this ere mortal life, that is a stretching before us like a
great paster lot covered over with tansey, wild rhubarb and sage roots
all in bloom--don't blush, my angel, but speak!"
Now Miss Josephine knew as well as could be, that it was the fashion to
feel dreadfully at sich times--to get up a caniption fit, or any how to
give right up and set kivered all over with blushes; but the bit of
cotton wool that she used always to put on her blushes with, was tucked
away in the top of her stocking, and she couldn't get at it handy
without being seen. So she puckered up her mouth and looked as if she
had just lost her granny.
"Give me _one_ word of hope, now du," sez the anxious 'pothecary, a
squeezing the milliner's hand, mit and all, between both of his, and a
twisting his head a one side, and a rolling up his eyes, like a hen
that's jest done drinking.
"Oh dear suz, what _can_ I answer?" sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a
wriggling her shoulders and kivering up her face with one hand, "I never
felt so in all my life--dear me."
"Don't spurn me away from these ere leetle feet--nobody will ever love
you so agin," sez the anxious chap, and with that he struck his hand
sort of fierce agin his heart, that was floundering away under his
yaller vest like a duck in a mud-puddle.
"Git up--oh du," sez Miss Josephine, catching a sly peek at the
'pothecary, through her fingers.
"One word of hope," sez the chap, a giving his bosom another tarnal dig;
"say that you will be mine."
"I'll think about it," sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a sighing through her
fingers.
"Say that you will be mine, or I will die on this ere very spot, and be
sent down to posterity a living monument of wimmen's hard-heartedness,"
sez the 'pothecary, a running his fingers through his hair, till it
stuck up sort of wild every which way over his head. "Do you want to
make this ere body a morter, and pound my loving heart to pieces with
the pestle of delay? If not, speak and say that my love is returned."
"It is," said Miss Josephine Burgess, kinder faint from behind her hand.
"Angelic critter," sez the lovyer.
"Now leave me," sez Miss Josephine Burgess.
"Harnsomest of created wimmen! I will," sez the 'pothecary.
"Oh how my heart beats," sez Miss Josephine Burgess.
"And mine," sez the 'pothecary, a getting up and a spreading his hand
out on his yaller vest.
"Leave me now," sez Miss Josephine Burgess.
"My dear critter, I will," sez the 'pothecary.
With that he made tracks across the street, opened his empty money
drawer with a sort of a chuckle, as much as to say, "if you're starved
out in this way much longer I lose my guess," and then he drank off a
glass of cold water, with a leetle brandy in it.
Miss Josephine Burgess sat still as a mouse, till the 'pothecary chap
made himself scarce, then she let down her hands and took a squint in
the glass to see how her face stood it. Arter that she went to a big
drawer, where she kept her slickest dry goods, and cut off a lot of
shiney red velvet, which she took up stairs, and told the gal that had
charge of the work-room, to have it made up into a ball dress before the
gals went home. The ten poor tired young critters were jest a beginning
to think about going hum to supper, but they sot down agin and looked in
each other's faces, as melancholy as could be, but said nothing. The
young gal that had charge of the work-room, happened to say that in the
course of a week they would have a prime lot of red velvet bonnets to
sell. At this Miss Josephine Burgess looked as cross as if she'd
swallowed a paper of darning needles, and told the young gal to hold her
tongue, and mind her own business. At this the young gal drew up, and
was a going to give the milliner her change back agin, but jest that
minit she happened to think that taking sarce from a stuck up critter
was bad enough, but that starving was a good deal worse; and so she
choked in and went to work at the dress, with her heart a swelling in
her harnsome bosom, like a bird when it's first caught.
"Don't let them gals go to sleep over their work," sez Miss Josephine
Burgess, as she was a going down stairs.
The young gal who had charge of the work-room, said something sort of
loud about people's having no feeling.
"What's that you say?" sez Miss Josephine Burgess, a coming back as
spiteful as could be.
"Nothing," sez the young gal who had charge of the work-room.
"It's well you didn't," sez the milliner, and with that she went down
stairs, and the poor tuckered out young critters didn't get hum to
supper till ten o'clock at night, because they had to stay and finish
off Miss Josephine Burgess's ball finery.
Miss Josephine Burgess was a sitting in the leetle room up over her
store, ready dressed for the ball, when the little apprentice gal cum up
and told her, that the gentleman from over the way was a waiting down
stairs. The milliner jumped up and began to wriggle about afore the
looking glass to be sartin that the red velvet frock, the golden chain,
and the heap of posies that she'd twistified in her hair, were all
according to gunter. Arter she'd took a purty gineral survey, she went
down stairs about the darndest stuck up critter that you ever sot eyes
on.
The 'pothecary stood afore the looking glass a trying to coax his hair
to curl a leetle, and a pulling up fust one side of his white satin
stock and then t'other, to make it set up parpendicular. He'd got a
leetle speck of dirt on his silk stockings and his shiney dancing pumps,
a coming across the street, so he took his white hankercher out of his
pocket and began to dust them off; but the minit Miss Josephine Burgess
cum in he stopped short, stepped back agin the wall, and held up both
hands as if he raly didn't know what to du with himself, and sez he--
"I never did! Talk about the Venus de Medici, or the New York beauty!
Did ever anything come up to that are?"
Arter this bust of feeling, he gin a spring fore'd and ketching her
hand, eenamost eat it up, he kissed so consarned eager. It didn't seem
as if there was any contenting the darn'd love-sick coot. But when he
hung on too hard, the milliner's vartuous indignation begun to bile up,
and so he choked off and begged her pardon; but said he couldn't help
it, as true as the world he couldn't, his heart was brim full and a
running over.
I ruther guess the people stared a few when the leetle 'pothecary walked
along the Tammany ball-room with Miss Josephine Burgess, in her red
velvet and golden chains, a hanging on his arm. Sich dashers didn't show
themselves at every ball by a great sight. There was a ginuine touch of
the aristocracy in the way the leetle 'pothecary turned up his nose, and
flourished his white gloves; and when they stood up to dance, Miss
Josephine held out her red velvet, and stuck out her foot, and curcheyed
away as slick as any of the Broadway gals could a done it. But jest as
she was a going to dance, who should stand afore her in the same reel
but the very young gal that took charge of her work-room. The milliner
had jest took a fold of the red velvet between her thumb and finger, and
was flourishing out her foot to balance up as genteel as could be, but
the minit she ketched sight of the working gal, she gin her head a toss
and reaching out her hand to the 'pothecary, walked off to a seat in a
fit of outraged dignity that was raly beautiful to look at. Arter this
Miss Josephine Burgess said she wouldn't try to dance among sich low
critters; and so she and the 'pothecary sidled about, eat peppermint
drops and talked soft sodder to one another--alers taking care to turn
up their noses when the harnsome working gal cum within gun-shot of 'em.
"Who _can_ that gentleman be, that's a eyeing me through his glass," sez
Miss Josephine Burgess to the 'pothecary, "what harnsome whiskers he's
got, did you ever?"
"I don't see anything over genteel in him, any how," sez the 'pothecary
a looking sort of oneasy. "I really can't see how you ladies can take a
fancy to so much hair."
"But how nicely he's dressed," sez she.
"I aint over fond of shaggy vests and checkered trousers," says the
'pothecary.
"Dear me he's coming this way," sez the milliner all in a twitter,--"I
hope he wont think of speaking."
"I hope so too," sez the 'pothecary, a looking as if he'd jest eat a
sour lemon, without any sweetening.
The chap come along sort of easy and independent, and stood close by
'em.
"Shan't we go t'other end of the room?" sez the 'pothecary to the
milliner, kinder half whispering, and a eyeing the strange chap as
savage as a meat-ax. "Not yet," sez the milliner, giving a
slantindicular sort of a look at the strange chap. He wasn't a feller to
be sneezed at in the way of good looks any how, nor a man that was
likely to lose anything by his bashfulness; for it warn't more than
three minutes afore he asked the milliner to dance, and walked her out
as crank as could be, right afore the 'pothecary's face. Didn't the poor
leetle chap look wamble-cropped when he see that. There he stood all
alone in a corner, feeling as sick as if he'd swallowed a dose of his
own doctor's stuff, and there he had to stand; for arter the tall chap
and Miss Josephine Burgess had got through dancing, they sot down
together by a winder and begun to look soft sodder at one another, and
talk away as chipper as two birds on an apple tree limb in spring time.
It didn't do no good for the 'pothecary to rile up and make motions to
her--she didn't seem to mind him a bit; so he stood still and grit his
teeth, for it seemed to him as if the milliner and the red velvet,
besides the account books, the stock in trade, and the hard chink too,
was a sliding out of his grip like a wet eel.
"Darn the feller to darnation," sez he, arter he'd bore it as long as he
could--and with that he went up to Miss Josephine Burgess, sort of
humble, and asked her if it wasn't about time to be a going hum?
The milliner said she wasn't in any hurry about it, and went to talking
with the tall chap agin. It was as much as the poor lovyer could do to
keep from busting out a crying, or a swearing, he warn't partic'lar
which; he felt all struck up of a heap, and went off to his corner agin
as lonesome as a goose without a mate.
By-am-by the milliner she come up and told him she was about ready to go
hum; the tall chap he went down stairs with them, and stood a kissing
his hand to her till she got into the street. The 'pothecary raly felt
as if he should bust, and he gin her a purty decent blowing up as they
went along Chatham-street. She didn't give him much of an answer though,
for her head was chuck full of the tall chap's soft sodder, and she
didn't know more than half of what he was a jawing about.
The leetle 'pothecary went hum and hurried up to bed, but all he could
du he couldn't get a wink of sleep. He got up arly in the morning, but
he hadn't no appetite for his breakfast, and kinder hung about his shop
door a keeping a good look out to see if anybody went to the milliner's,
and a wondering if it was best for him to go over and see how she seemed
to be arter what he'd said to her the night afore. So he brushed up his
hair and was just taking his hat to go over and try his luck, when a
harnsome green buggy waggon hauled up jest agin the milliner's, and out
jumped the tall chap with the whiskers.
The 'pothecary he turned as white as a sheet and begun to cuss and swear
like all natur. He had plenty of time to let his wrathy feelings bile
over, for it was more than three hours afore the green buggy waggon driv
away agin. The minit it was out of sight, the 'pothecary snatched up his
hat and scooted across the street like a crazy critter. Miss Burgess was
a sitting in her leetle back room dressed out like anything. This made
him more wrathy than he was afore, for she never dressed out when he was
a coming, so he went straight up to her, and sez he, sort of wrathy,
"Miss Josephine Burgess, what am I to think of this ere treatment?"
The milliner looked up as innocent as a kitten, as if she hadn't the
least idee what he meant.
"What treatment?" sez she, as mealy-mouthed as could be.
The 'pothecary felt as if he should choke; he griped his hand, and the
words came out of his mouth like hot bullets.
"Oh you perfidious critter, you," sez he, "how can you look in my face
arter you've been a sitting three hull hours with that darn'd nasty tall
coot that you danced with all the time last night."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean more than nothing. I danced with a
gentleman last night, and he has been here this morning, but I raly
don't see why _you_ should trouble yourself about it," sez Miss
Josephine, a taking up her work, and a beginning to sew as easy as she
ever did in her life.
The 'pothecary was so mad, he couldn't but jest speak out loud. "Look a
here, Miss Burgess," sez he, a speaking sort of hoarse, "aint we as good
as married? didn't you engage yourself to me? and wasn't the day
eenajest sot afore that consarned etarnal ball?"
"Not that I ever knew on," says Miss Burgess, a pinning a pink bow on to
a bonnet she was to work on, and a holding it out to see how it looked,
"I raly don't know what you mean."