A countryman had been to the city and went home brimful of
news. “You ’member the Smiths?” he asked his wife, “the Silver
Crik Smiths, them as got rich on the’r gran’feyther’s money.”
Yes, she remembered them. “I seen ’em. They’re way up; live in
a gran’ house on a street they call a thavenoo. They ride in a
double kerridge, and have no end of money.” She said she s’posed
as much. “But, ’Mandy, you wouldn’t want ter change places with
her; I see her a minnit, and I didn’t hev the heart to speak
t’her. She’s bin humbled right down to the dust. She’s as blind
as a bat.” Blind! She guessed not. “But she is. Fust, she didn’t
know me, me that’s rid down hill and played tag with her when
she warn’t knee-high to a turkey. Then, ’Mandy, tho her eyes was
wide open, she went right along the streets, all drest up in her
fine clothes, and a leetle mite of a dog was leading her along.
He was tied to a streeng, and she had hold of t’other end of
the streeng. Now, ’Mandy, how’d you like to be her?”--Detroit
_Free Press_.
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