Sez Samantha still a knittin' and still a lookin' cam, "You must use clean water to cleanse dirty things. I don't believe as you do. I think the good qualities of men and wimmen would heft jest about equal, and need equal treatment. But accordin' to your tell if men are so much worse than wimmen they need her help to clean up things."
Agin the Vice President see where his hasty talk and anxiety to prove his pint had led him. He wiggled round in his chair till I trembled for the legs on it, for he wuz still leanin' back in it too fur for safety. He kinder run his hand up under his hat and scratched his head, but didn't seem to root any new idees out of his hair, and he finally give up, settled his hat back more firmly on his head agin, let his chair down sudden and got up and sez:
"I come over this mornin' to borry Josiah's sheep shears."
And after he went out with 'em I asked Samantha, "What do you spoze the Vice President wanted of sheep shears this time of year?" And she sez:
"He looked sheepish enough to use 'em on himself."
Well, it wuz gittin' along towards noon, as I reminded Samantha, and she riz up and put her knittin' work on the mantelry piece, resoomed her gingham apron and went out into the kitchen and soon I hearn the welcome sounds so sweet to a man's ear whether literary or profane, that preperations wuz goin' on for a good square meal.
And as I sot there peaceful and happy in my mind who should come in but my dear and congenial friend, Uncle Sime Bentley. He had been on a visit to Illenoy. And after his first words of greetin' and his anxious inquiries as to how my great work wuz progressin' and gittin' along, he went on and gin me the petickulars about his journey.
He'd been on a visit to the city to see his nephew, Bill Bentley. Bill is well off and smart, and his father-in-law is rich and sent his only child, Bill's wife, to college; "jest like a fool," Uncle Sime said. "For what duz a female want with such a eddication." Sez he, "The three R's, Readin', Ritin' and Rithmetic are enough for her and would be for any woman if they worked and tended to things as my ma, Bill's grandma did.
"Up at four every mornin' summer and winter, milkin' five or six cows and then gittin' breakfast for her big fambly, hired men and all, and doin' every mite of the housework, and spinnin', weavin', makin' and mendin', and takin' sole care of her eight children, in sickness and health, and takin' care of her mother who had been as big a worker and stay-at-home as she wuz, and who wuz now melancholy crazy in a little room done off the woodshed.
"How ma did work," sez Uncle Sime in a reminescin' axent, "stiddy at it from mornin' till night, never stirrin' out of the house from year to year. Oh! if she could only have lived to set a sample for Bill's wife, and instruct her in a wife's duty.