Well, she said she didn’t want him incommoded, “but,” sez she, “if it is not too much trouble will you please tell my husband that I would like to have him come home as soon as he can make it convenient to do so, for the house is afire.” And then she smiled sweetly and made a low bow, and went back into the house lookin’ real serene, and went to scollopin’ the other side of her fore-top.
The neighbor started off wildly on the run hollerin’ “fire!” and “help!” for he see the flames bustin’ out of one of the chamber winders. He got the fire engine and the neighbors collected, and got most of the furniture out below, and they couldn’t hardly git her to make a move, for she hadn’t got the last scallop made, but finally somebody grabbed her, and kinder hauled her out, she a tryin’ to smile, they say, and look calm, as she was borne out.
I told Joel, before I thought, that “she ort to been singed, and that it would have done her good, mebby it would rousted her up a little.”
And I guess he felt so too, though he didn’t say so. Josiah looked real interested, and I sez, fur I didn’t dast to have the encouragement go too fur that way:
“Calmness and serenity are beautiful, Josiah, and almost always desirable, though when a house gits afire you ort to let up on ’em a little.”
Josiah’s liniment looked quite a little clearer, but some shadders still remained, and I went on tenderly and pictured out to him the first meal I would cook for him when we got home. And then his liniment grew peaceful and happy, and he sez gratefully:
“You’re so calmin’ to the nerves, Samantha, when you set out to be, you’re a perfect iodine.”
I d’no really what he did mean, I guess it wuz anodyne, I keep a bottle to home for nerves. But ’tennyrate in a few 437 minutes he wuz talkin’ quite glib about home and the children and I felt richly repaid for all my trouble. And with such little agreeable talk and eppisodin’ did I try to diversify the weariness of travel.
Josiah is a great case for Hamburg steaks, and he confided to me the hope that we would git some here that would go even beyond any that I had ever cooked and that would ensure him a future of this delicious food. But we didn’t see a sign on ’em in the city. He wuz bitterly disappinted.
Hamburg is a free state, small, but I spoze feelin’ quite big and independent. It is ruled by a Senate of eighteen members, and a house of Burgesses of one hundred and ninety-two members, and they make their own laws and keep ’em, I spoze, the most on ’em, and get along quite well and prosperous.