“Fey tea,” he sez agin, lookin’ clost at me.
And I sez agin with dignity, “I don’t know what you mean.” And he sez to me: “I am talkin’ Chinese, Samantha; that means ‘hurry up.’ I shall use that in Jonesville. When you’re standin’ in the meetin’ house door talkin’ about bask patterns and hired girls with the female sisters, and I waitin’ in the democrat, I shall holler out, ‘Fie tea, Samantha;’ it will be very stylish and uneek.”
I didn’t argy with him, but got in well as I could, but havin’ stepped on my dress and most tore it, Josiah hollered out, “See sum! see sum! Samantha!”
And I, forgittin’ his fashionable aims, sez to him, “See some what, Josiah?”
“See sum, Samantha. That means ‘be careful.’ I shall use that too in Jonesville. How genteel that will make me appear to holler out to Brother Gowdey or Uncle Sime Bentley, in a muddy or slippery time, ‘See sum, Brother Gowdey; see sum, Uncle Sime!’ Such doin’s will make me sought after, Samantha.”
“Well,” sez I, “we’d better be gittin’ back to the tarven, for Arvilly will be wonderin’ where we are and the rest on ’em.”
“Well, just as you say, Samantha,” and he leaned back in his chair and waved his hand and says to the men, “Fey tea, fey tea; chop, chop.”
I expect to see trouble with that man in Jonesville streets with his foreign ways.
Well, we wuz passin’ through one of the narrer streets, through a perfect bedlam of strange cries in every strange language under the sun, so it seemed, and seein’ every strange costoom that wuz ever wore, when, happy sight to Jonesville eyes, there dawned on my weary vision a brown linen skirt and bask, made from my own pattern.