“Oh, I’m afraid we shouldn’t succeed where there are so many papers. We might go to some new Western town,” returned Annis.
“Then we’d have to have those ridiculous items like, ‘Mr. Canada Halifax was in town yesterday buying a new plough. Canada has raised a pair of side whiskers, and they are vastly becoming.’”
“Or, ‘Mrs. Alaska Sitka is visiting her friend, Mrs. Siberia Behring,’” added Annis. “‘She wears a new gown, which she purchased last year from our honored townsman, Mr. Woolly De Beige.’” The girls both went off into a fit of laughter at their nonsense. “That reminds me,” said Annis, “of a man in a little village where we were once. Mamma was buying stockings, which this shopkeeper never by any accident called anything but ‘hose,’ and once he said, ‘These are not quite so nice as some others I have, madam. Now, this,’ opening another box, ‘is a much better ho.’”
Persis laughed merrily. “Of course, ho ought to be the singular of hose,” she said. “Prue is always making funny mistakes. She calls hucksters ‘hucksens,’ and the garbage-box the ‘goblidge-box.’ She told me the other day that all the new houses ought to have ‘fire-skates’ on them, so ‘folks could git out of ’em easy; they build ’em so tall nowadays.’ And she told me her church was so crowded last Sunday that even the ‘islands’ were full. We try to tease her, but she never will admit but that she knows just as much as any one, and she always has an answer ready. Lisa asked her the other day what she thought of a war with England. ‘Humph!’ she said. ‘I reckon we could stand it.’ ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Lisa. ‘We might manage very well on land; but what about our water forces?’ ‘They ain’t no trouble ’bout that,’ said Prue; ‘we got all the water we kin use. You ought just to see the way it flies out o’ the spigot.’”
“What are you two girls so merry over?” asked Mrs. Brown, putting her head in at the door, attracted by the peals of laughter.
“Oh, we’re just telling funny things. Persis was telling about old black Prue.” And Annis repeated the story.
“You are such a comfort to me, Persis,” Mrs. Brown said. “I don’t know what my little girl would do without you. You have waked her up and are making another girl of her. She used to be such a little mouse.” And Persis felt a remorseful twinge as she remembered her late jealous feelings.
“I shall never, never be so exacting again,” she said to herself as she took her way home. But as it takes more than one stroke to fell a well-grown tree, so it takes more than one effort to overthrow a fault.
