“Well,” says he, tryin’ the age of the knife with his fingers, “I don’t think I shall go anyway.”
“IT HAINT ALWAYS BEST TO TELL REASONS.”
Says I layin’ the table cloth over my left arm, and foldin’ my right and left arm, tryin’ hard to keep some composed (on the outside):
“What are your reasons, Josiah Allen?”
“Oh,” says he in a kind of a blind way—goin’ to grindin’ again,—“I have my reasons, but it haint always best to tell reasons to everybody.”
And jest so he kep’ a grindin’ and a hangin’ back and a actin’. It was a curious time, very. I a standin’ there erect and firm on the stoop, with my table cloth on my left arm and earnestness on my eyebrow, and he half bent, a grindin’ away on that old jack knife, with obstinacy on his brow, a tellin’ me in a blind mysterious way that he had his reasons and wouldn’t tell ’em. Oh! how offish and strange men will act. Truly, truly, doth the poet observe, “that men are wild, and have their spells.”
There Josiah Allen had acted to the Debatin’-school all up in arms about goin’. He knew the nation would expect me to be present. He knew well what a gloom it would cast over the Sentinal if I wasn’t there, a shadder that would spread (as you may say) from pole to pole. Josiah Allen knew all about it; he knew well how I had lotted on makin’ a martyr of myself in the cause of Right and Wimmen, and here he had to baulk in the harness. Truly, men are as contrary creeters as the earth affords, when they are a mind to be. Every married woman will join with me in sayin’, that there are moments in married life, when mules seem to be patterns of yieldin’ sweetness and obligin’ness compared with lawful pardners.
But here, in this tryin’ moment was where mind stepped in to the relief of matter and Samantha. Some wimmen when they see their pardners act so strange and curious, would have give up. Not so Samantha. Here was where the deep and arduous study of her life-time into the heights and depths of the manly mind soared up and triumphed. I didn’t act skairt at all by him, neither did I show out that I was mad—though I was inwardly—to see him act so offish and obstinate. No! I looked down on him a grindin’, and a actin’, with a almost marble calm; and with a resolution nearly cast-iron I concealed my opinion of him and kep’ my tongue in my head, and with a slow, even, and almost majestic tread I turned round and went back into the house, laid my table-cloth on the buttery shelf, and begun my preparations to conquer and to triumph. At jest noon, I called him into the house to as good a dinner as Jonesville ever offered to man or beast.
Again science, philosophy and Samantha conquered. Josiah had got through with the turkey and vegetables of all kinds, and there was a sweet smile on his face as I brought on the cherry puddin’, and a tender, affectionate look to his eyes as he looked up at me when I sot the bowl of sweet sass to eat on it in front of him. Then I knew the time had come, the hour was ripe, and I boldly and confidently tackled him as to what his reasons was. And without a struggle or a murmur he says in gentle axents: