Fame, victuals, away! away! our food shall be,
His smile on me—my sweet smile on he.
There was pretty near twenty verses of ’em, and as she finished she said to me—
“What think you of my poem, Josiah Allen’s wife?”
Says I, fixin’ my sharp grey eyes upon her keenly, “I have had more experience with men than you have, Betsey;” I see a dark shadow settlin’ on her eye-brow, and I hastened to apologise—“you haint to blame for it, Betsey—we all know you haint to blame.”
She grew calm, and I proceeded, “How long do you suppose you could board a man on clear smiles, Betsey—you jest try it for a few meals and you’d find out. I have lived with Josiah Allen 14 years, and I ought to know somethin’ of the natur of man, which is about alike in all of ’em, and I say, and I contend for it, that you might jest as well try to cling to a bear as to a hungry man. After dinner, sentiment would have a chance, and you might smile on him. But then,” says I thoughtfully, “there is the dishes to wash.”
Jest at that minute the Editor of the Augur stopped at the gate, and Betsey, catchin’ up a twin on each arm, stood up to the winder, smilin’.
He jumped out, and took a great roll of poetry out from under the buggy seat—I sithed as I see it. But fate was better to me than I deserved. For Josiah was jest leadin’ the horse into the horse barn, when the Editor happened to look up and see Betsey. Josiah says he swore—says he “the d——!” I won’t say what it was, for I belong to the meetin’ house, but it wasn’t the Deity though it begun with a D. He jumped into the buggy agin, and says Josiah,
“You had better stay to dinner, my wife is gettin’ a awful good one—and the sugar is most done.”