“Less make the best of what we can’t help Josiah.”
But though my tone was soothin’, it didn’t seem to soothe him worth a cent, for says he in tremblin’ tones:
“I am a sufferer Samantha, a great sufferer.”
Truly as Josiah said, it was a slippery time, and then not bein’ used to be follered round and wiped up by a mop, it all wore on him. Says he, speakin’ out in a louder, sort o’ fiercer tone:
“Have we got to stay in this house Samantha, one minute longer than to-morrow mornin’ at sunrise?”
Says I, “We will set sail from here some time in the course of the day.” For truly I thought myself I couldn’t stand the doin’s much longer; and then Josiah went on and told me what Philander had told him; he said Philander said he was completely wore out. He was a good lookin’ sort of a man, and one that would, I thought, under other and happier circumstances, love a joke; but his spirit was all broke down now. He told Josiah it was done by a mop, by bein’ run after with a mop; he said it would break down a leather man in a year; he said he drather set out doors all winter then go into the house; he said he made it his home to the barn the most of the time—lived in the manger. He said when he first commenced life, he had a young man’s glowin’ hopes in the future; he had loftier, higher aims in life; but now his highest ambition was to keep house by himself in the barn, live alone there from year to year, go jest as nasty as he could, live on flies, and eat dirt; he talked reckless and wild.
“But” says he, “if I should try it, she would be out there a scourin’ the rafters; before I had been there half an hour, she would be out there with her mop. I hope,” says he, “that I am a Christian; but,” says he, “I dassant express the feelin’ I have towards mops. Ministers of the Gospel would call it a wicked feelin’, and so I shant never try to tell any one how I feel towards ’em; mops is what I bury deep in my breast.”
Josiah said he spoke to him about how anxious and haggard his wife looked, and how wild and keen her eyes was.
“Yes,” say she, “she got that look a chasin’ flies; she wont let one come within half a mile of the house if she can help it; and,” says he, “she would be glad to keep me a horseback a helpin’ her chase ’em off; but I wont”, says he, with a gloomy look, “I never will take a horse to it; I’ll run ’em down myself when she sets me at it, but I wont chase ’em a horseback as long as my name is Philander Spicer.”
The doin’s there wore on Josiah dretfully, I could see. Two or three times after he got into a nap, he started up a shoutin’: