I give Josiah Allen a look full in his face, a curious look, very searchin’ and peculiar. But before I had time to say anything, only jest that look, the door opened, and Spinks’es wive’s sister come in unexpected, and said that Miss Spink wanted to borrow the loan of ten pounds of side pork, a fine comb, some flour, the dish-kettle, and my tooth-brush.[tooth-brush.]
I let her have ’em all but the tooth-brush[tooth-brush], for I was determined to use ’em well. And Josiah didn’t like it at all because I didn’t let that go. And he said in a fault-findin’, complainin’ axent “that I didn’t seem to want to be sociable.”
And I told him that “I thought borrowin’ a tooth-brush was a little too sociable.”
And he most snapped my head off, and muttered about my not bein’ neighborly, and that I didn’t feel a mite about neighborin’ as he did. And I made a vow, then and there (inside of my mind), that I wouldn’t say a word to Josiah Allen on the subject, not if they borrowed us out of house and home. Thinkses I, I can stand it as long as he can; if they spile our things, he has got to pay for new ones; if they waste our property, he has got to lose it; if they spile our comfort, he’s got to stand it as well as I have; and, knowin’ the doggy obstinacy of his sect, I considered this great truth, and acted on it, that the stiller I kep’, and the less I said about ’em, the quicker he’d get sick of ’em; so I held firm. And never let on to Josiah but what it was solid comfort to me to have ’em there all the time a most; and not have a minute I could call my own; and have ’em borrow everything under the sun that ever was borrowed: garden-sass of all kinds, and the lookin’-glass, groceries, the old cat, vittles, cookin’ utensils, stove-pipe, a feather-bed, bolsters, bed-clothes, and the New Testament.
They even borrowed Josiah’s clothes. Why, Spink wore Josiah’s best pantaloons more than Josiah did. He got so he didn’t act as if he could stir out without Josiah’s best pantaloons. He’d keep a tellin’ that he was goin’ to get a new pair, but he didn’t get ’em, and would hang onto Josiah’s. And Josiah had to stay to home a number of times jest on that account. And then he’d borrow Josiah’s galluses. Josiah had got kinder run out of galluses, and hadn’t got but one pair of sound ones. And Josiah would have to pin his pantaloons onto his vest, and the pins would lose out, and it was all Josiah could do to keep his clothes on. It made it awful bad for him. I know one day, when I had a lot of company, I had to wink him out of the room a number of times, to fix himself so he would be decent. But all through it I kep’ still, and never said a word. I see we was loosin’ property fast, and had lost every mite of comfort we had enjoyed, for there was some of ’em there every minute of the time, a most, and some of the time two or three of ’em. Why, Miss Spink used to come over and eat breakfast with us lots of times. She’d say she felt so mauger that she couldn’t eat nothin’ to home, and she thought mebby my vittles would go to the place. And besides losin’ our property and comfort, I’ll be hanged if I didn’t think sometimes that I should lose my pardner by ’em, they worked him so. But I held firm. Thinkses I to myself, it must be that Josiah will get sick of neighborin’, after a while, and start ’em off. For the sufferin’s that man endured couldn’t never be told nor sung.
Why, before they had been there a month, as I told sister Bamber,—she was to our house a visitin’, and Josiah was in the buttery a churnin’, and I knew he wouldn’t hear,—says I: “They have borrowed everything I have got, unless it is Josiah.”
And if you’ll believe it, before I had got the words out of my mouth, Miss Spinks’es sister opened the door, and walked in, and asked me “if I could spare Mr. Allen to help stretch a carpet.”
And I whispered to sister Bamber, and says I: “If they haint borrowed the last thing now; if they haint borrowed Josiah.”
But I told the girl “to take him an’ welcome.” (I was very polite to ’em, and meant to be, but cool.)
