But inwardly, my mind was some composed by thinkin’ it was principle that had belated me. So I sailed doun stairs. I had put on my best clothes, my head-dress looked foamin’, my overskirt stood out noble round my form. And it was with a peaceful mind though some destracted by the noise, that I wended my way to the breakfast table.
But instead of all of us a settin’ to one table with Miss Aster to the head, a pourin’ out tea, there was I’ll bet, more’n a hundred little tables, with folks settin’ round ’em, a eatin’, and waiters a goin’ all round amongst ’em, a waitin’ on ’em. And every man waiter had got on one of his wives white bib aprons. Thinks’es I to myself, what a tussle I should have with Josiah, to get him to wear one of my aprons round the house when I had company; he is awful sot aginst wearin’ aprons, it is all I can do to get one on to him when he is a churnin’.
Johnothan Beans’es ex-wife ketched my eye, as I went in, and she came and sot me doun to a little table where there wasn’t nobody. And then she was drawed off by somebody and left me alone. And I spoke out loud to myself,
“I’d like to know what I am goin’ to eat, unless I lay to and eat stun china and glass ware.” And ketchin’ sight of the pepper box, I exclaimed almost convulsively,
“I never was much of a hand to eat clear pepper, and nothin’ else.”
A nigger come up to me at that minute, and said somethin’ in a frenchified accent about a cart bein’ on my plate, or somethin’ about a cart, and I see in a minute that he wanted to make out—because I come from the country—that I wanted a cart load of vittles. I don’t know when I have been madder. Says I,
“You impudent creeter, you think because I am from the country, and Josiah haint with me, that you can impose upon me. Talk to me, will you, about my wantin’ a cart load of vittles? I should be glad,” says I in a sarcastic tone, “I should be glad to get somethin’ a little more nourishin’ than a three tined fork and a towel to eat, but I don’t seem to run much chance of gettin’ on it here.”
Before he had time to say anything, J. Beans’es ex-wife came up, and said somethin’ to me about lookin’ at “Bill the Fair.” I looked down on the table, and noticed then for the first time that there was a piece of poetry layin’ there, seemin’ly cut out of some newspaper, I see that she wanted me to read it, but I told her, “That I wasn’t much of a hand for poetry anyway, and Betsey Bobbet wrote so much that it made me fairly sick of it,” and besides, says I, “I have left my specks up stairs, I forgot ’em till I got most down here.”
But jest then I happened to think, mebby she had wrote it herself, I don’t want to hurt nobody’s feelin’s, and says I, in a pleasant tone,
“I presume “Bill the Fair,” is a good piece of poetry, and if you haint no objection, I will take it home with me, and put it into Tirzah Ann’s scrap book.” She started off before I fairly got through speakin’ and I folded up the poetry and put it into my pocket, and in a minute’s time back she came with some first rate vittles. She knows what I like jest as well as I do, havin’ lived with us a spell, as I said, when she first went to grass. She knows jest what a case I am for store tea; but she asked me what kind of tea I wanted, and I spoke right out before I thought,