The white headed boy, with the solitary and lonesome gallus, said to me as he stood waitin’ for the five cent bill I was a gettin’ for him out of my port-money: “That door needs mendin’ bad!”
I give him his bill and started him off, and I was jest a musin’ on his last words, and thinkin’ that Lank’s best way would be to take the key-hole and have a new door made to it, when the hired girl come to the door. I told her who I was and she seemed to be kinder flustrated and said she’d go and tell the family. And I, a standin’ there in the hall, and not knowin’ how long she would be gone, thought I would set down—for it always tires me to stand any length of time on my feet. There was a elegant imposin’ lookin’ chair by the side of a real noble lookin’ table, but to my surprise and mortification when I went to set down, I sot right down through it, the first thing; I catched almost wildly at the massive table to try to save myself, and I’ll be hanged if that didn’t give way and spilte on my hands, as you may say; it tottled and fell right over onto me; and then I see it was made of rough shackly boards, but upholstered with a gorgeous red and yeller cotton spread, like the chair; they both looked splendid. I gathered myself up, and righted the table murmurin’ to myself, “Put not your trust in princes, nor turkey red calico, Josiah Allen’s wife; set not down upon them blindly, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind, and lame in your body.”
APPARIENTLY STRONG.
I was jest a rehearsin’ this to myself, when the hired girl come back, and says I:
“I am glad you have come, for I don’t know but I should have brought the hull house down in ruins onto me, if you hadn’t come jest as you did.”
“And then she up and told me that that chair and table wasn’t made for use, but jest for looks; she said they wanted a table and a reception chair in the hall, and not bein’ able to buy sound ones, they had made ’em out of boards they had by ’em.”
“Well,” says I mildly, “I went right down through the chair the first thing, and it skairt me.”
I got along through the hall first-rate after this, only I most fell twice, for the floor bein’ carpeted with wall paper varnished (to be oil-cloth appariently) and tore up, and the varnish makin’ it stiff, it was as bad as a man-trap to catch folks in, and throw ’em.
Jest before we got to the parlor door I see, that in the agitation of body and mind I had experienced sense I come in, I had dropped one of my cuff buttons, nice black ones that I had bought jest before I started at a outlay of 35 cents, and the hired girl said she would go back for it; and while she was a lookin’ for it—the plasterin’ bein’ off considerable, and the partition jest papered over—I heard ’em a sayin’ and they seemed to be a cryin’ as they said it: