Och! don't be talkin'. Is it howld on, ye say? An' didn't I howld on
till the heart of me was clane broke entirely, and me wastin' that thin
you could clutch me wid yer two hands! To think o' me toilin' like a
nager for the six year I've been in Ameriky--bad luck to the day I iver
left the owld counthry, to be bate by the likes o' them! (faix, an'
I'll sit down when I'm ready, so I will, Ann Ryan, an' ye'd better be
list'nin' than drawin' your remarks), an' it's mysel', with five good
characters from respectable places, would be herdin' wid the haythens.
The saints forgive me, but I'd be buried alive soon 'n put up wid a day
longer. Sure, an' I was a granehorn not to be lavin' at onct when the
missus kim into me kitchen wid her perlaver about the new waiter-man
which was brought out from Californy.
"He'll be here the night," says she, "and Kitty, it's meself looks to
you to be kind and patient wid him, for he's a furriner," says she, a
kind o' looking off. "Sure an' it's little I'll hinder nor interfare
wid him nor any other, mum," says I, a kind o' stiff, for I minded
me how these French waiters, wid their paper collars and brass rings
on their fingers, isn't company for no gurril brought up dacint and
honest. Och! sorra a bit I knew what was comin' till the missus walked
into me kitchen smilin', and says, kind o' schared, "Here's Fing Wing,
Kitty, an' you'll have too much sinse to mind his bein' a little
strange." Wid that she shoots the doore; and I, misthrusting if I was
tidied up sufficient for me fine buy wid his paper collar, looks up
and----Holy fathers! may I never brathe another breath, but there stud
a rale haythen Chineser a-grinnin' like he'd just come off a tay-box.
If you'll belave me, the crayture was that yeller it 'ud sicken you
to see him; and sorra stich was on him but a black night-gown over
his trousers, and the front of 'is head shaved claner nor a copper
biler, and a black tail a-hanging down from behind, wid his two feet
stook into the heathenesest shoes you ever set eyes on. Och! but I was
upstairs afore you could turn about, a-givin' the missus-warnin'; an'
only stopt wid her by her raisin' me wages two dollars and playdin'
wid me how it was a Christian's duty to bear wid haythins and taitch
'em all in our power--the saints save us! Well, the ways and trials I
had wid that Chineser, Ann Ryan, I couldn't be tellin'. Not a blissed
thing cud I do but he'd be lookin' on wid his eyes cocked up'ard like
two poomp-handles, an' he widdout a speck or a smitch o' whiskers on
him, and his finger-nails full a yard long. But it's dying you'd be to
see the missus a-larnin' him, and he grinnin' an' waggin' his pig-tail
(which was pieced out long wid some black stoof, the haythen chate!),
and gettin' into her ways wonderful quick, I don't deny, imitatin' that
sharp, you'd be shurprised, and ketchin' and copyin' things the best of
us will do a-hurried wid work yet don't want comin' to the knowledge of
the family--bad luck to him!
Is it ate wid him? Arrah, an' would I be sittin' wid a haythen, and he
a-atin' wid drum-sticks--yes, an' atin' dogs an' cats unknownst to me,
I warrant you, which is the custom of them Chinesers, till the thought
made me that sick I could die. An' didn't the crayture proffer to help
me a wake ago come Toosday, an' me a foldin' down me clane clothes
for the ironin', an' fill his haythen mouth wid wather, an' afore I
could hinder squrrit it through his teeth stret over the best linen
table-cloth and fold it up tight, as innercent now as a baby, the dirty
baste! But the worrest of all was the copyin' he'd be doin', till ye'd
be distracted. It's yerself knows the tinder feet that's on me since
ever I've bin in this country. Well, owin' to that, I fell into the way
o' slippin' me shoes off when I'd be settin' down to pale the praties
or the likes o' that, and, do ye mind, that haythin would do the same
thing after me whiniver the missus set him parin' apples or tomaterses.
The saints in heaven couldn't have made him belave he cud kape the
shoes on him when he'd be payling anything.
Did I lave fur that? Faix an' didn't he get me into trouble wid my
missus, the haythin? You're aware yerself how the boondles comin' from
the grocery often contains more'n'll go into anything dacently. So, for
that matter, I'd now and then take out a sup o' sugar, or flour, or
tay, an' wrap it in paper and put it in me bit of a box tucked under
the ironin' blankit the how it cuddent be bodderin' any one. Well, what
should it be, but this blessed Sathurday morn the missus was a-spakin'
pleasant and respec'ful wid me in me kitchen, when the grocer boy
comes in an' stands fornenst her wid his boondles, an' she motions
like to Fing Wing (which I never would call him by that name nor any
other but just haythin); she motions to him, she does, for to take the
boondles an' empty out the sugar an' what not where they belongs. If
you'll belave me, Ann Ryan, what did that blatherin' Chineser do but
take out a sup o' sugar, an' a handful o' tay, an' a bit o' chaze,
right afore the missus, wrap them into bits o' paper, an' I spacheless
wid shurprise, an' he the next minute up wid the ironin' blankit and
pullin' out me box wid a show o' bein' sly to put them in. Och, the
Lord forgive me, but I clutched it, and the missus sayin', "O Kitty!"
in a way that 'ud curdle your blood. "He's a haythin nager," says I.
"I've found you out," says she. "I'll arrist him," says I. "It's you
ought to be arristed," says she. "You won't," says I. "I will," says
she; and so it went, till she give me such sass as I cuddent take
from no lady, an' I give her warnin' an' left that instant, an' she
a-pointin' to the doore.
* * * * *
It is now the proper time for the cross-eyed woman to fool with the
garden hose. I have faced death in almost every form, and I do not know
what fear is, but when a woman with one eye gazing into the zodiac
and the other peering into the middle of next week, and wearing one
of those floppy sun-bonnets, picks up the nozzle of the garden hose
and turns on the full force of the institution, I fly wildly to the
Mountains of Hepsidam.
Water won't hurt any one, of course, if care is used not to forget and
drink any of it, but it is this horrible suspense and uncertainty about
facing the nozzle of a garden hose in the hands of a cross-eyed woman
that unnerves and paralyzes me.
Instantaneous death is nothing to me. I am as cool and collected where
leaden rain and iron hail are thickest as I would be in my own office
writing the obituary of the man who steals my jokes. But I hate to be
drowned slowly in my good clothes and on dry land, and have my dying
gaze rest on a woman whose ravishing beauty would drive a narrow-gage
mule into convulsions and make him hate himself t'death.