KITTY SMITH AND CALEB COBB.
We have got a dretful pretty girl a-stayin’ with us now, one of the relation on my side, one of the Smiths. When we heard she was a comin’, Josiah kinder hung back from the idee at first. But as I see him a hangin’ back, I calmly, and with dignity, took the Widder Doodle, one of the relations on his side, and mildly yet firmly threw her in his face. It hit him jest right, the idee did, and I hain’t heard a word sense of murmurin’s or complainin’s about the Smiths.
KITTY SMITH.
I enjoy her bein’ here the best that ever was. We have took lots of comfort sense she come. Not that happiness and security has caused me to shut that open eye of my spectacle. No! that is still on the watch, vigilent and keen, and if there is anything a goin’ on, I feel that it cannot long be[be] hid from that eye. But everything has seemed calm and peaceful, Josiah is affectionate and almost tender in his mean to me. And I learn from the neighbers that the Widder Bump has gone off on a visit to her folkses. But still that eye of my speck is sleepless. Not once has it closed itself in slumber, and still I hold firm.
Kitty Smith is a pretty girl, as pretty a one as I ever see. The Smiths, as I have said to Josiah a number of times, was always pretty fair lookin’. He thinks so too, only when he is fractious. She looks a good deal as I did when I was her age; Josiah owned up to me the other night that she did. We had had a splendid good supper, and he felt well, and he said so of his own accord. And then she favors her mother considerable, a good-lookin’ woman as I ever see, and smart.
Kitty is very fair complected, smooth, as delicate as a sea-shell, with curly hair almost gold-colored, only bearin’ a little on the brown, kinder fruzzly and fluffy on top, blowin’ all over her forward when she goes out in the wind, or anything. And her forward bein’ white as snow, when the little gold rings and curls are a blowin’ all over it, they look well. She has got sort ’o pinky cheeks, and her eyes are big and dark, and kinder grey like, and all runnin’ over with fun and mischief. She is the biggest witch out. And her lips are red as two roses, and always a laughin’, them and her eyes; I don’t know which laughs the most. Her name is Kitty, and she is just as affectionate as a little kitten, and as playful.
I think a sight on her. And I love to look at her. I always did love to look at a handsome woman. There are some wimmen that it gauls to see a female handsomer than they be, but it never did me. I always loved to see handsome pictures, and a beautiful woman’s face is a picture with a soul in it.
I set a great deal of store by her, and so does Josiah and the childern; they are all a quarrelin’ now which will have her the most. But we shan’t none of us have her long, I s’pose. For she has told me in strict confidence, and if I tell, it must not go no further, for it must be kep’! She don’t want Josiah and the childern to get holt of it, knowin’ they would plague her most to death. She is engaged to be married to a awful smart-lookin’ feller. She showed me his picture—a keen-eyed, noble-lookin’ chap, I can tell you, and well off. His father owns the big manufactory where her father was overseer when he died, and where her mother keeps boarders now. His father stood out, at first, about his marryin’ a poor girl. And Kitty come off out here for a long visit; her mother wanted her to; they are both proud, and won’t force themselves into no company. But Mark—that is the young feller’s name—Mark stands firm, and the old man is a comin’ round gradual. Kitty, though she jest worships Mark, won’t go there till she is welcome, and I bear her out in it. That is why she is here on such a long tower. But she knows it is all a comin’ out right; her mother says it is; and Mark writes to her every day or two, and she is happy as a bird.
But she is a little too full of fun sometimes, and thoughtless. She don’t realize things as she ort, and as she will when she is older. Now there is a young feller here in Jonesville that has got after her, Caleb Cobb, or Kellup, as everybody calls him. And just out of pure fun she lets him foller her up. I feel bad about it, and so I have told Josiah. But he said “she didn’t mean no more hurt than a kitten did, a-playin’ with a mouse.”