“Why,” says I, “She can’t mourn, because she haint got no dress suitable to mourn in, thats why Miss Bamber feels like death about it. She knows it is her duty to mourn, and she wants to, like a dog, but can’t.”
Says Kellup, lookin stingy, awful unwillin’ to give anything, “She can mourn jest as bad in one dress as another, or without any.”
“Wall,” says I reasonably, “So I think. But everybody has their little different ways and excentricities, and it don’t look well for us to meddle with ’em. Now that feller by the name of Procrustes, at Attica village. Now, I always thought he went too far. He had a iron bedstead, and he used to make everybody that traveled his way lay down on it, and if their legs was too short, he would stretch ’em out to fit that bedstead, and if they was too long, he would saw ’em off.”
Now Mr. Procrustes wuzn’t doin’ exactly the fair thing. What earthly business was it of his, if other folks’es legs was too long to be convenient, or too short? It wuzn’t his place to trim ’em off, or stretch ’em.
And I always thought that if I had had business in his neighborhood, and been travelin’ that way, and he had tried to fit me or Josiah to that bedstead, why, I always thought he would have seen trouble. I should have gin him a awful talkin’ to, and kicked.
Mr. Procrustes is dead. Yes, I believe old Thesius, a neighber of his’en, killed him upon some mountain or other. I presume he got to stretchin’ old Thesius’es legs out, or begun to saw ’em off, and got the old man mad, and he jest laid to and killed him.
TAKIN’ A REEF.
Yes, I believe old Mr. Procrustes hain’t livin’ at the present time, but he left a large, a very large family. And every one of ’em inherits the old gentleman’s traits and disposition. I have seen lots of ’em that, if they dast, would have every leg in the world jest the length of their’n. If they dast, they would tackle you in a minute with a saw or a broad-axe.
“But I never felt that way. Now, as fur as my own feelin’s are concerned, I think memories can haunt anybody, and hearts can ache jest as severe under a white dress as a black one, and visey versey. Hearts can beat gay and triumphant aginst bumbuzeen bodist waists and crape trimmin’s. But Miss Bamber feels different. She feels that she can’t mourn without certain conveniences. And feelin’ in that way, and feelin’ that it would be a duty and a privilege for her to mourn for her mother-in-law, I say that woman shall have the wherewith to do it with. I say she shall mourn if she wants to; she shall be helped to a black dress. There hain’t a member of the meetin’-house but what can give a six-pence without feelin’ it. We want to keep it all still from Miss Bamber, and get it, and get it all made for her before she knows a thing about it. And,” says I, “mebby you had better give me the six-pence to-day, as we have got it about all collected, and want to get the dress right away.”