High Life in New York / A series of letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the church over to Weathersfield in the state of Connecticut

by Ann S. Stephens

"Oh," sez he, a trying to choke in, "the swarry is going to be in the drawing room there, walk in."

"What, haint it come yit," sez I, "and where's all the folks?—I thought he was going to have a party, too."

"Wal, so he is," sez the nigger, "but they haint begun to come yit."

"Wal, now," sez I to myself, "If this don't beat all creation. Now, in Connecticut it would a been eenamost time to go hum agin; these Yorkers du beat all for laziness." With that I went into the room. By the living hokey, I never see anything like it! It was enough to dazzle one's eyes; the two doors were slid back into the partition, and it seemed like one great ball-room; and, besides that, there were too great winders at the further eend, that opened into a place that seemed kinder like a garden. I didn't know what to make of it, for it was chuck full of posies that looked as bright and as green as if it was the fourth of July, and yit it was a freezing like everything out of doors. I went down the room and stuck my head through the winder, and as true as I live it was a little room all full of bushes and roses sot up on benches; it had a glass ruff, and the sides were one allfired great winder, with little vines a hanging down over it, and a great tree chuck full of something that looked like oranges, a standing up agin it.

There were five or six cages full of little yaller birds a hanging among the bushes, and right back of the tree stuck over with oranges, stood a marble woman a holding up a bunch of grapes cut out of marble, with a lot of green leaves twisted round it as nateral as could be. It was awful harnsome, but I swan if it didn't make me feel streaked to look at her a standing there among the bushes, for she hadn't the least rag of kivering on, and it raly was enough to make a feller blush to see her a holding the grapes over her head, as if she wanted to make people look at her.

Think sez I, is this the swarry that Cousin Beebe has bought to show his company: I reckon he'd better have bought a calico frock or something of that sort to kiver over it. I couldn't bear to look at it, and so I jest turned about and stood still by the winder with my eyes wide open, for at the t'other eend of the room was another garden with a naked swarry and bushes in it, as much like the one I'd been a looking in as could be. I went toward it, but stopped short, and burst out a larfin all by myself, for it was nothing but the same garden a shining in the great big looking glass, that I wrote to you about, that hung up right afore me.

"Think, says I, is this the swarry that Cousin Beebe has bought to show his company: I reckon he'd better have bought a calico frock or something of that sort to kiver over it."

Arter I'd stole another sly look at the orange tree and the swarry, I jest stuck my hands in my pockets as well as I could, considering they were so tight, and stickin out one foot, leaned back again the winder frame and looked around the room. A hot sweltering sun in dog days could not have been brighter than everything was. There were two great things hung by chains from the middle of both rooms, with hundreds and hundreds of chunks of glass a hanging all over them; and they were stuck full of candles as white as curd, all a burning and blazing, till they looked like a heap of ice and snow hung up to melt in a fire. Both the mantle shelfs were kivered over with them things that I told you about that looked so much like gold; some on 'em were lamps, and some had great white candles stuck into them; and there were lots on lots of flowers set in among them that smelt as sweet as new hay, and such a shining and glistening I never did see. The best on it all was, that the whopping looking glasses on both eends the rooms made them seem twice as long, and as if they had a great many more things in them than they raly had. There were two round tables made out of some kind of cloudy stun, about as large as marm's cherry-wood tea-table, a standing at both eends of the rooms, all kivered over with leetle picters and all sorts of play-things, besides heaps of books with morocco backs and sprigged off with gold, all lying among them every which way, as if somebody had been in a hurry, and had pitched them on the tables without staying to pile them up.

Besides all that, they had brought in a whole heap more of them footstools that I told you about, and they had put square kind of back pillows all tossled off and kivered over with flowers at the eends of the two settees, besides a good many other things that I haint time to write about. "Wal," sez I to myself, "if Cousin Beebe don't take the shine off these New Yorkers in his party I lose my guess; but I wonder where on arth he contrives to raise money to do it with these hard times, for all this must have cost him a few, I'm sartin."