All I blamed him for was his prowlin’ round so much. I thought then, and I think still, seein’ he knew his own heft, and knew he had ’em, and was liable to have ’em, he’d done better to have kep’ still, and not tried to got round so much. But his mother said he felt restless and oneasy. I couldn’t help likin’ the boy; and when he fell right into my bread that I had a risin’ and spilte the hull batch, and when he fell acrost the table in the parlor and broke everything that was on it, and when he fell onto a chicken-coop and broke it down and killed a hull brood of chickens, and when he fell onto some tomato plants of a extra kind which Josiah had bought at a great expense and sot out, and broke ’em off short, I didn’t feel like scoldin’ him. I s’pose it was my hefty principles that boyed me up; them and the sweet thought that would come to me—mebby Josiah Allen will hear to me another time, mebby he’ll get sick of summer boarders and to takin’ of ’em in.
I s’pose it was these lofty feelin’s that kep’ me up; truly if it hadn’t been I don’t know how I could have lived, cookin’ as much as I had to, and goin’ through with what I did, historics, and fallin’ fits, and etcetery, etcetery.
And the 3 smaller children was ugly; there haint no other name made that will describe their demenors and acts, only jest that word, ugly.
They made me more work than all my housework put together. A handlin’ everything, and a breakin’ everything, and a ridin’ the turkeys, and actin’, and performin’.
EXERCISING THE GOBBLER.
I spose they was told more’n a hundred times by me and Josiah to not ride that turkey gobbler. And I don’t spose there was ever any other children on earth, only jest them 3, that would have dast to gone near it. Why, I have seen right-minded and moral children time and agin weep and cry when they seen it comin’ nigh ’em, it was so powerful lookin’, and high-headed. But good land! first thing I’d know I’d see one on ’em right on that gobbler, pretendin’ to ride it; they almost killed that Tom Turkey.
And then all of a sudden we’d hear the fannin’ mill a goin’ full blast, and Josiah would run to the barn, and there they would be a runnin’ dirt through it, slates, stuns, or anything. And then I’d hear the wheel a goin’ up stairs, buzzin’ as if it would break its old band, and up I’d go, and there they’d be a spinnin’ of my best rolls. And five different times I took the youngest one out of the flour barrel, where they was a makin’ a ghost out of him, to appear to the oldest one—they loved to scare that boy into fits, they loved it dearly.
And they’d lay to and eat between meals all the preserves and jell and honey they could get holt of, unbeknown to me; they wasted twice over every day what their board come to. But I kep’ still, and held firm. Thinkses I the medicine is bitter, but it is goin’ to do good; the patient is feelin’ the effects of it. For Josiah looked awful as the days went by. He see he had made a terrible mistake; he see that he’d done better to have listened to his faithful pardner. He see where he had missed it. But pride kep’ him silent, only in the little unguarded speeches that he would make in sudden moments of anger and agony, unbeknown to him. Such as sayin’ in loud, quick axents:
“Dummit, I can’t stand it so much longer.” Or in low, plaintive tones, “Did Heaven ever witness such tribulation?”