“Oh, no,” says he, “she means every word she says. She is one of the loveliest creeters on earth. She is most a angel. Oh!” says he, dreamily, “What a sound mind she has got. How fur she can see into things.”
Says I, “I heard her a tellin’ you this mornin’ that you was one of the handsomest men she ever laid eyes on, and didn’t look a day over twenty-one.”
“Wall,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect, “she thinks so; she says jest exactly what she thinks.” And says he, in firm axents, “I am a good-lookin’ feller, Samantha—a crackin’ good-lookin’ chap; but I never could make you own up to it.”
I didn’t say nothin’, but my gray eye wandered up, and lighted on his bald head. It rested there searchin’ly and very coldly for a moment or two, and then says I sternly, “Bald heads and beauty don’t go together worth a cent. But you was always vain, Josiah Allen.”
Says he, “What if I wuz?” And says he, “She thinks different from what you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye in her head for beauty. She is very smart, very. And what she says, she means.”
“Wall,” says I, “I am glad you are so happy in your mind. But mark my words, you won’t always feel so neat about it, Josiah Allen, as you do now.”
Says he in a cross, surly way, “I guess I know what I do know.”
I hain’t a jealous hair in the hull of my foretop or back hair, but I thought to myself, I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s eyes opened; for I knew as well as I knew my name was Josiah Allen’s wife, that that woman didn’t think Josiah was so pretty and beautiful. But I didn’t see how I was goin’ to convince him, for he wouldn’t believe me when I told him she was a makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so there it was. But I held firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by her.
