Now, the truth on it is, I begin to think that your ministers there in Connecticut pull the bit on the church members a leetle too tight sometimes, and instid of giving you good holesome doctrine, right pure out of the Bible, and taking the potaters and apples and wood and chickens and turkies that the deacons and old maids send to them as part pay, they sometimes contrive to make their being ministers an excuse for poking their fingers into every body's pie as well as their own.
I am afeard you won't like to hear me say so; but it does make me awful wrothy to hear that the minister threatened to turn you out of the church if you let me go on so—but you needn't be a bit consarned about that. He'd no more turn you out of the meeting than he'd strike his own granny, not as long as you own the best farm in all Weathersfield, and send him a fat turkey every thanksgiving day, besides paying pew tax and all the other taxes, as you du. I don't know what he might du if you was to fail and bust up; for as soon as a man begins to get poor, the ministers grow awful particlar about his morality and religion; but there's no fear of that; so jest tell him the next time he threatens to church you for what I'm a doing down here in York, that you'll serve him as the parliament in England used to fix their King when he begun to grow obstropulous, and as they would sarve that little skittish Queen of theirn if she wanted to have a way of her own. Tell him you'll "stop his supplies." Don't send him a turkey next thanksgiving, and tell marm not to carry a single doughnut nor a skein of tow yarn to the next spinning-bee that his church members make for him. I ruther guess that this will bring him to his senses. As for me, tell him to go to grass and eat bog hay till's he as fat as Nebuchadnezzar. I aint one of his church members any how, and if I was, I shouldn't ask him to take care of me. I know what I'm about, and he needn't be scared on my account. I know as well as he does that York has a tarnal sight of bad people in it; and I know, too, that there's a good many rale down right honest, hull-hearted fellers here, tu. As for the wimmen, though they are dreadfully stuck up, and eenamost ruin their husbands with dressing fine and giving parties, there's some of them that aint to be sneezed at in a fog, I can tell you. I don't want to say any thing to hurt the minister's feelings, but he needn't cum his church threats over me, for it won't du no good, I'll be darned if it will.
Wal, now that I've gin the minister a piece of my mind, free gratis for nothing, I may as well write what's been a going on down here in York.
One morning a little black boy cum into my office with a heap of letters, and he give me one without speaking a word, and went off agin. I opened the letter, and there dropped out a square piece of white pasteboard, and on it was printed, in leetle finefied letters, "Mrs. Beebe at home—Thursday evening."
Wal, sez I to myself, if this don't take the rag off the bush—cousin Mary's got to gadding about so much, that she has to send round word when she is a going to stay at hum one evening. I do wonder how Mr. Beebe can stand it. I shouldn't blame him if he took to drink, or got into bad company, if his wife goes on so; for if a woman won't stay to hum nights, and keep every thing nice and snug agin her husband comes away from his bisness, a feller must have an allfired good heart, and a good head tu, if he don't go off and git into scrapes on his own hook.
I sot down and histed my feet on the top of the stove, and begun to think it all over, till it seemed to be my duty to go and talk to cousin Mary about the way she was a going on. I remembered what a purty, smart little critter she used to be when she lived in Connecticut, and how kind hearted she was; and then I thought of her queer stuck up ways since I'd seen her here; and it was as much as I could du to keep the tears out of my eyes, for if cousin Mary had been my own sister, I couldn't a liked her better than I did when she was a gal.
Wal, arter thinking it all over, I made up my mind to go and ask John if he didn't think it best for me to go and talk to her, for I felt kinder loth to meddle with his business, if he didn't want me tu; and anyhow, I didn't expect much thanks for giving her advice—for when a feller steps in between man and wife, it's like trying to part a cat and a dog, and he is lucky enough if he don't git scratched by one and worried to death by t'other; but I looked at the piece of paste-board agin, and made up my mind that something ought to be done, and if John didn't take it up, I would; for if there's any thing I du hate on arth, it's a gadding woman—and I didn't feel as if I could give cousin Mary up quite yit.
Wal, I took my hat, and put my hands in my trousers' pockets, and walked along kinder slow through Cherry street, till I cum to Franklin Square. I did'nt seem to mind any body, for my heart felt sort a heavy with thinking of old times. I kept a looking down on the stun walk, and felt eenamost as much alone as if I'd been in a Connecticut cramberry swamp; yit there was more than fifty people a walking up and down the Square. I'd got jest agin the old Walton House, that was built afore the revolutionary war, but was so busy a thinking, that I forgot to look up at the arms and figgers carved out over the door, every one of 'em put up there by a British tory family afore Gineral Washington drove them out of house and hum—when all to once somebody hit me a slap on my shoulder that made me jump eenamost into the middle of next week. I looked up, and there was cousin Beebe a larfin like all natur because he'd made me jump so.
"Hello, cousin Jonathan!" sez he, "what the deuce are you thinking about?"
"About that," says I, a forking out the piece of pasteboard from my trousers' pocket, "a little stuck up nigger jest gin me that ere."