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!”