“I am glad they was rare done.”
Agin he smiled, and agin I spoke, and I mastered my feelin’s, with a effort, and spoke out loud and clear,
“The hen that laid them eggs, never shall do another day’s work as long as my name is Josiah Allen’s wife. I know jest which one laid ’em, for old speckle face’s eggs are so big that we always keep ’em for our own use.” Says I, “it makes me proud and happy to think I am the owner of that hen, for if it hadn’t been for them eggs, I never should have felt so well acquainted with you. If it hadn’t been for them eggs that broke onto your good and honored face, I never should have had the privilege of graspin’ holt of your hand and sayin’ to you what I now say, that though goodness and patience and faithfulness may be made light of by some, they are jest what is goin’ to carry Uncle Sam triumphant onward, with a smilin’ face, when the egg shells of uncivil war break on his honest face, and thier yelks run down into his whiskers.”
Here my feelin’s almost overcame me agin, and as he smiled at me, and spoke kinder pleasant to me—and smiled agin, I turned silently away and grasped holt of General Grant’ses hand, and says I, in still more chokin’ accents—
“Ulysses this is a proud day for Josiah Allen’s wife,” says I, “Ulysses how do you do?”
He didn’t say nothin’ but nodded kinder pleasant to me, and I says in the same almost tremblin tones for I knew he thought every thing of his relations. “How is Mr. Dents’es folks, are they all enjoying good health?” He nodded agin kinder pleasant but didn’t say a word, and I proceeded on—
“Ulysses you have freed the land from war and bloodshed. Wherever the smoke of that peaceful cigar has smoked, it has drove before it the blood red cloud of war and treason.” But says I, “that haint the main reason why I thought you ought to be President, and so I have told Josiah. I have said to Josiah more’n a hundred times that any man or woman ought to be President that knew enough not to talk when they hadn’t nothin’ to say. But—” says I, for even in that wrapped moment stern principle was the guide of J. Allen’s wife—“That was when you was run up for President the first time; I go now for Horace Greeley, and so does Josiah.”
There haint nothin’ little and envious about Ulysses Grant, he didn’t act mad a mite, he nodded to me agin as friendly as ever, and after invitin’ them both in the name of Josiah, to make it thier home with us whenever they come to Jonesville, and sendin’ my best respects to Julia and Mr. Dents’es folks, and Skylers’es wife Elliner, I retired to my seat and sot down.
When Betsey discovered who I had been talkin’ with, she looked wild at the thought, but it didn’t rouse in her, the spontanious emotions of patrotism it did in me. If a barell has been filled up with rain water, you can’t expect to tap it and have it run strong beer. When any sudden circumstance taps folks’es minds, they will run out of ’em jest what they have been filled with, no more, no less. My mind was that filled with noble emotions of admiration and patrotism, that I entirely forgot for the minute that I was J. Allen’s wife from Jonesville. But Betsey all the while remembered B. Bobbet, she also remembered her poetry. I don’t believe a few earthquakes could make her forget that, her first words was after she recovered herself,
“I will make General Grant, that deah, sweet man, a present. Everybody does, that wants to get onto the right side of him. I will give him a piece of my poetry. If I remember rightly I have got one in my satchel bag, all printed out, with a running vine around the edges. There is 45 verses of it, and it is on the war. How fortunate that I brought it along.” And as she dove her hands into her satchel bag, she continued dreamily,