But I told him firmly, I was on a tower of Right, and though I expected and lotted on sufferin’ and bein’ persecuted as a P. A., I would not suffer as the foolish ones do; I would not, for nothin’, go into a job I dreaded worse than makin’ soap, or bilein’ sap. But, says I, “I will set here and wait for you.”
So he set off to be took, feelin’ awful neat, and sayin’ to me the last thing, what a crackin’ handsome picture he was a goin’ to make.
That man is as vain as a pea-hen! I sot right there peaceful and considerable composed, though it give me solemn feelins to watch the crowd a passin’ by all the time, no two alike, always a movin’ on, never a stoppin’. They seemed like the waves of a river that was surgin’ right on towards a sea whose name is Eternity; oh, how they kep’ a movin’ on! Liberals from Liberia, Tunicks from Tunis, Sandwiches from Sandwich, Oranges from Orange, Turkeys from Turkey and Poles from Poland; white men, and yeller men, and black men, and red men, and brown men. Oh! what a sight it was to see the endless wave and rush a settin’ on and on forever. And as I see ’em,—though in body I was a settin’ there—I too was one of ’em a bein’ carried on, and floatin’ toward the ocian. I seemed to be kinder dizzy, “a ridin’,” as childern say when they set on a bridge and watch the current sweep by; I was one of the waves, and the river was a runnin’ swift.
I MEET OLD ACQUAINTANCES
I hadn’t allegoried (to myself) more than two or three minutes, probable, when I see a form I knew, Jonathan Beans’es ex-wife by name, and a vegetable widow by trade. I rose right up and catched holt of her pin back, and says I, “Jonathan Beans’es ex-wife, how do you do?” she turned round.
“Why Josiah Allen’s wife! is it you?” And we shook hands, and kissed each other, (though I don’t make a practice of it.) And then I told her that Josiah had gone to be took, and I was a waitin’ for him, and she sot right down by me, cousin Bean did. Perhaps you will notice that I say Bean, and not ex-Bean, as formally; she is livin’ with her husband again, so she told me the first thing. Bean has come back, and they are keepin’ a hen dairy in Rhode Island; I asked her if the hens didn’t bother her a fallin’ off in the water, and she said they didn’t; and I told her you couldn’t always tell by the looks of a map how things really was. Then we talked a good deal about the Sentinal, and then I inquired about Miss Astor and the boys; and then we spoke about Alexander, and I told her I felt awful cut down when I heerd he was gone; and then we talked about Alexander’s Widder, and we felt glad to think that it wasn’t likely she would ever be put to it for things to eat or wear, and had a comfortable house to live in, “most a new one,” Miss Bean said.
I told her I was glad she had a house that wouldn’t want shinglin’ right away; it is hard enough to be a Widder without bein’ leaked down on.
And then we meandered off into other friends in the village, and I asked her if Victoria had been cuttin’ up and behavin’?
She said, she guessed my advice had quieted her down. She hadn’t heerd of her actin’ for quite a spell. I felt noble when she told me this, but her very next words made me feel different; I didn’t feel so good as I did. Says she: “Beecher has been talked about some sense you was to the village.”
Says I in a almost dry tone, “I have heerd his name mentioned once or twice durin’ the past few years.”