And then I kep’ perfectly still for a number of minutes, for silence is the solemn temple with its roof as high as the heavens, convenient for the human soul to retire into, at any time, unbeknown to anybody; to offer up thanksgivin’s, or repent of iniquities. And I thought my Josiah was repentin’ of hisen.
But truly as I said men’s consciences are like ingy rubber, dretful easy and stretchy, and almost impossible to break like a bruised reed. For while I was a hopin’ that my companion was a repentin’, and thought mebby he would burst out a cryin’, overcome by a realizin’ sense of his depravities; and I was a thinkin’ that if he did, I should take up a corner of his bandanna handkerchief and cry on it too—that man for all his back slidin’s is so oncommon dear to me—he spoke out in jest as chirp a way as I ever seen him, and for all the world, jest as if he hadn’t done nothin’:
“I wonder if sister Doodle will have supper ready, Samantha. I meant to have told her to fried a little o’ that beef.”
HOW WE BOUGHT A SEWIN’ MACHINE AND ORGAN.
We done dretful well last year. The crops come in first-rate, and Josiah had five or six heads of cattle to turn off at a big price. He felt well, and he proposed to me that I should have a sewin’ machine. That man,—though he don’t coo at me so frequent as he probable would if he had more encouragement in it, is attached to me with a devotedness that is firm and almost cast-iron, and says he, almost tenderly: “Samantha, I will get you a sewin’ machine.”
Says I, “Josiah, I have got a couple of sewin’ machines by me that have run pretty well for upwards of—well it haint necessary to go into particulars, but they have run for considerable of a spell anyway”—says I, “I can git along without another one, though no doubt it would be handy to have round.”
But Josiah hung onto that machine. And then he up and said he was goin’ to buy a organ. Thomas Jefferson wanted one too. They both seemed sot onto that organ. Tirzah Ann took hern with her of course when she was married, and Josiah said it seemed so awful lonesome without any Tirzah Ann or any music, that it seemed almost as if two girls had married out of the family instead of one. He said money couldn’t buy us another Tirzah Ann, but it would buy us a new organ, and he was determined to have one. He said it would be so handy for her to play on when she came home, and for other company. And then Thomas J. can play quite well; he can play any tune, almost, with one hand, and he sings first-rate, too. He and Tirzah Ann used to sing together a sight; he sings bearatone, and she sulfireno—that is what they call it. They git up so many new fangled names now-a-days, that I think it is most a wonder that I don’t make a slip once in a while and git things wrong. I should, if I hadn’t got a mind like a ox for strength.
But as I said, Josiah was fairly sot on that machine and organ, and I thought I’d let him have his way. So it got out that we was goin’ to buy a sewin’ machine, and a organ. Well, we made up our minds on Friday, pretty late in the afternoon, and on Monday forenoon I was a washin’, when I heard a knock at the front door, and I wrung my hands out of the water and went and opened it. A slick lookin’ feller stood there, and I invited him in and sot him a chair.