Yes, Josiah Allen was in a hard place, a very hard place. But he couldn’t get away from her, so he had to grin and bear it. For he couldn’t onclench her hands; she had a sort of a spazzum right there, a holdin’ him tight. And every time she would come to a little, she would call him “Mandana,” and yell about them “awful, blood-curdlin’ screeches.” It was a curious time—very.
Wall, she got better after a while. Dr. Bamber give her powerful doses of morpheen, and that quelled her down.
But morpheen couldn’t quiet down Josiah Allen’s feelin’s, nor ease the sore spot in his vanity. No! all the poppies that ever grew in earthly gardens couldn’t do it. He never will start out a seranadin’ agin, I don’t believe—never.
I hain’t one to be a twittin’ about things. But sunthin’ happened to bring the subject up the other mornin’ jest after breakfast, and I says this, I merely observed this to him:
“Wall, you wanted to make a excitement, Josiah Allen, and you did make one.”
“Wall, wall! who said I didn’t?”
Says I: “You have most probable done your last seranadin’.”
I said this in a mild and almost amiable axent, but you ort to heard how that man yelled up at me.
Says he: “If I was a woman, and couldn’t keep from talkin’ so dumb aggravatin’, I’d tie my tongue to my teeth. And if you are a goin’ to skim the milk for that calf, why don’t you skim it?”
“Wall,” says I mildly, “I hain’t deef.”