“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘and it seems jest as if I want to go to sleep and have another nap, jest a purpose to dream about you.’
LOVE’S DREAM.
“And so I would git up and cut the kindlin’ wood, and build the fire, and feed the cows, and go round the house a gettin’ breakfast, as still as a mice so’s not to disturb him, and he’d lay and sleep till I got the coffee turned out, then he’d git up and tell me his dream. It would be all about how pretty I was, and how much he loved me and how he would die for my sake any time to keep the wind from blowin’ too hard onto me. And he would eat jest as hearty and enjoy himself dretfully. Oh! we took a sight of comfort together, me and Mr. Doodle did. And I can’t never forget him; I can’t never marry again, his linement is so stamped onto my memory. Oh, no, I can’t never forgit his linement; no other man’s linement can be to me what his linement was.”
She stopped a minute to ask me where she should set the dishes she had wiped, and I was glad of the respit, though I knew it would be but a short one. And I was right, for in settin’ up the dishes, she see a little milk pitcher that belonged to my first set of dishes; there was a woman painted onto it, and that set her to goin’ again. Truly, there is nothin’ on the face of the earth, or in the sky above, but what reminds her, in some way, of Doodle. I have known the risin’ sun to set her to goin’, and the fire-shovel, and the dust-pan. She held the pitcher pensively in her hand a minute or two, and then she says:
“This picture looks as I did, when I married Mr. Doodle. I was dretful pretty, so he used to tell me; too pretty to have any hardships put onto me, so he used to say. There was considerable talk about wimmen’s votin’, about that time, and he said there wasn’t money enough in the world to tempt him to let his Dolly vote. Anything so wearin’ as that, he said he should protect me from as long as he had a breath left in his body. He used to git dretful excited about it, he thought so much of me. He said it would ‘wear a woman right out; and how should I feel,’ says he, ‘to see my Dolly wore out.’
“He couldn’t use to bear to have me go a visitin’, either. He said talkin’ with neighborin’ wimmen’ was wearin’ too, and to have to come home and git supper for him after dark; he said he couldn’t bear to see me do it. He never was no hand to pick up a supper, and I always had to come home and git his supper by candle light—meat vittles; he always had to have jest what he wanted to eat, or it made him sick, he was one of that kind—give him the palsy. He never had the palsy, but he always said that all that kep’ him from it, was havin’ jest what he wanted to eat, jest at the time he wanted it; and so he would lay down on the lounge while I got his supper ready. I’d have to begin at the very beginning, for he never was one of the men that could hang over the tea-kettle, or git up potatoes, or anything of that sort; and I’d most always have to build up the fire, for he thought it wasn’t a man’s place to do such things. He was a dretful hand to want everybody to keep their place; that was one reason why he felt so strong about wimmen’s votin’. He had a deep, sound mind, my Doodle did. But, as I said, he’d lay on the lounge and worry so about its bein’ too much for me; that, ruther than make him feel so bad, I give up visitin’ almost entirely. But he never worried about that, so much as he did about votin’; it seemed as if the thought of that almost killed him. He said that with my health, (I didn’t enjoy very good health then) I wouldn’t stand it a year; I would wilt right down under it. Oh! how much that man did think of me!
PRETTY HANDS AND EYES.
“When I would be a workin’ in the garden, (I took all the care of the garden,) or when I would be a pickin’ up chips—we was kinder bothered for wood—he’d set out on the back piazza with his paper, the Evenin’ Grippher—awful strong paper against wimmen’s rights—and as I would be a bringin’ my chips in, (we had a old bushel basket that I used,) he would look up from his paper and say to me,—‘Oh, them pretty little hands, how cunning they look, a quirling round the basket handles; and oh, them pretty little eyes; what should I do if it wasn’t for my Dolly? And how should I feel if them pretty little eyes was a lookin’ at the pole?’ Says he, ‘It would kill me Dolly; it would use me right up.’