Says I, “Have you read Ruskin, Mahala?”
I was all engaged in it at that time for Thomas J. was a readin’ it out loud evenin’s—dretful interestin’ readin’, made you feel as if you never got acquainted with the world till he introduced you.
“Red Ruskin,” says she with a dreamy mean, “it seems as if we have got some winter apples by that name, though I can’t tell for certain.”
Then truly I thought to myself, I had got to the end of my chain. I said no more, but sot silently knittin’, and let her foller her own bent.
And there was truly as curious doin’s as I ever see. The little childern couldn’t move for fear they would soil their clothes or muss their ruffles. Her husband couldn’t take a step hardly without bein’ follered round by a mop, and exhorted about lettin’ in flies, though he didn’t realize his sufferin’s so much as he would, for he was to the barn the most of the time; he had a chair out there, Josiah said, and kinder made it his home in the manger.
When she got supper, we had enough, and that that was good; but we eat on a oil-cloth because it was easier to keep clean than a table cloth, and we eat on some awful old poor lookin’ dishes, she said she had washed up her best ones, and put ’em away so’s to keep the dust out of ’em, and she didn’t want to open the cupboard, for fear of lettin’ in a fly. And when we went up stairs to our room that night, way up in the front bed-room, it was carpeted all the way, the hall and stairs, and our room, with shinin’ oil cloth. You could see your faces in it, but it seemed awful sort o’ slippery and uncomfortable. There wasn’t a picture nor a bracket nor a statute on any of the walls; she said her husband wanted some, but she wouldn’t have ’em they catched dust so. The sheets and piller cases was starched stiff to keep clean longer, and ironed and pressed till they shone like glass. My companion almost slipped up on the oil cloth when he went to git into bed, and as he lay down between the stiff shinin’ sheets, he says to me in sad tones:
“This is a slippery time, Samantha.”
I was a takin’ off my head-dress, and didn’t reply to him, and he says to me in still more pitiful and lonesome tones:
“Samantha, this is a slippery time.”
His tone was very affectin’, very; and I says to him soothinly, as I undid my breast-pin, and took off my collar: