Oh! how my pardner did look, how his axent did sound, as he uttered them fearful and profane words. And then before I could put in a soothin’ word to soothe him, Danks spoke right out, and says he:
“You promised to take ’em for all summer, and if you don’t I won’t pay you a cent for their board, and you can’t make me.”
Here Josiah turned as white as a white milk-pail, and groaned to that extent that I thought he was a goin’ to faint away.
And as it turned out, the law was on Danks’es side. Josiah made ’em all go that very day, but he couldn’t get a cent from ’em. He hired a lawyer to prosicute Danks, but Danks, bein’ sharp-witted and ugly (and sometimes I think that such trials as he underwent, if anybody don’t take ’em as a means of grace, makes anybody ugly. I can’t help feelin’ sorry for Danks, after all). But as I was a sayin’, Danks worked it in such a way that Josiah lost the case, and had to pay the costs on both sides. They was heavy bills,—most as heavy as Bill Danks,—and take it with what we lost boardin’ of ’em, and what the childern tore to pieces, and Bill smashed and squshed down, a fallin’ on ’em,—take it all together, it is a loss that makes Josiah Allen groan now every time he thinks on it. We don’t either of us think his back will ever feel as it did before. He strained it beyond its strength.
A VISIT FROM MISS RICKERSON.
It was about a week after the Danks’es departure and exodus. It was a cool day for the time of the year, and very windy. And I was settin’ calm and peaceful, hullin’ some strawberries for dinner. For my companion, Josiah Allen, had gone to Jonesville, and I wanted to have dinner ready by the time of his arrival. But I had only jest got my potatoes pared and over the stove, when I heard the old mare and him drive into the barn-yard. He had come sooner than I looked for. But it didn’t excite me; I was prepared. For not knowin’ exactly the time of his arrival, I had made ready for any emergency. I had drawed the table out, and put the table-cloth on; and I felt at rest, and peaceful.
Let wimmen whose pardners are wont to rampage round and act, when they come in and find dinner only jest begun—let ’em not tell any wrong stories or exagerations or parables, let ’em not bandy words or argue, but let ’em, jest before he comes in, draw out the table and throw the table-cloth on, and everything will move on peaceful; their pardners will think dinner is most ready, and as they glance at that snowy table-cloth their wrath will leave ’em, and they will demean themselves like lambs.
I only tell what I have learnt from experience. And any little crumbs of wisdom and knowledge that I have gained by hard experience, and through tribulation, I am willin’ to share freely, without money and without price, with the female sect; I think so much of ’em, and wish ’em so well. Now jest this one little receipt,—this table-cloth performance,—would have been worth dollars and dollars to me if I had known it when I was first a pardner. But I never found it out till I had been married over thirteen years, and had been jawed accordingly, when I was belated and dinner wasn’t ready. Why no woman would have any idee of its value till they try it. Men are as likely creeters as the earth affords, if you only know how to get along with ’em. And wimmen has to try various ways and measures. I learnt this jest by tryin’ it as a experiment. I have tried a good many experiments—little harmless ones like this. Some of ’em work, and some don’t.
Wall, I sot there hullin’ my berries, and listenin’ to the wind, which was a roarin’ round the house. Seems as if I never heard it blow no harder. It blowed for all the world as if it had been kep’ in through sickness in its family, or sunthin’, and was out now for the first time, on a regular spree.