He said it was handier for some folks; they could come better Sundays than any other day.
“Handier!” says I, in a almost dry tone, “it would be awful handy for me sometimes, to do my week’s washin’ Sundays, or knit striped mittens, or piece up bed-quilts, but you don’t catch me at it.” Says I “Had we ort to begreech one day out of the week to Him who give us the hull of ’em?” And says I, “I don’t blame you a mite for wantin’ to make our fureign visitors feel to home, and use ’em well; but when I go a visitin’ I don’t expect ’em to kill off their grandmothers if I don’t happen to like the looks of the old lady and haint used to grandmothers. Good land! how simple it would be in me to expect it.”
Says Joseph, “Josiah Allen’s wife, you have presented the subject to me in a interestin’ and eloquent manner.” Says he, “The other matter is out of my power to change, but as for Sundays, I will get ’em back again; I will have ’em.”
Oh, how earnest and good he did look out of his eyes (a bright blueish-grey) as he said this, and how fearfully handsome. And I a thinkin’ to myself—here I be advisin’ the Nation for her good, and she a takin’ my advice. I felt noble, very. If I could have accomplished both of my undertakin’s, I don’t know but I should have felt too noble; but we all, like Mr. Paul, if we go to soarin’ up too high, have to have a thorn in the flesh to prick us and keep us down in our place. So I bid Joseph a almost affectionate good-bye, and Josiah and me started homewards.
DOIN’ THE MAIN BUILDIN’.
The next mornin’ I told Josiah we would tackle the Main Buildin’; so we follered a lot of folks from our tarvern—another spiked gate turned round with us and let us in, and—and what didn’t that gate let us into? Oh, good land! Oh, dear suz! You may think them words are strong, and express a good deal, but they don’t begin to explain to you how I felt. Why, a hull Dictionary of jest such words couldn’t begin to tell my feelins as I stood there a lookin’ round on each side of me, down that broad, majestic, glitterin’ street full of folks and fountains and glitterin’ stands, and statutes, and ornaments, with gorgeous shops on each side containin’ the most beautiful beauty, the sublimest sublimity, and the very grandest grandeur the hull world affords. I advanced a little ways, and then, not sensin’ it at all, I stopped stun still and looked round me, Josiah kinder drawin’ me along—entirely unbeknown to me. Finally he spoke in a sort of a low, awe-stricken whisper:
“Do come along, Samantha!”
But I still stood stun still, lookin’ round me through the eyes of my specks (Josiah had got the other eye put in), and didn’t sense what he was a sayin’ to me till he spoke again—hunchin’ me hard at the same time: “What is the matter Samantha?”
Says I, in low strange tones, “I am completely dumbfoundered Josiah Allen!”