And Cassandra’s face would get red as blood, and I could see by her looks that she hadn’t the least idee what to say, or do, she was so awful wretched, and feerfully uncomfortable. And truly if Nathan Spooner could have sunk right down through the floor into the suller, right into the potato-ben, or pork-barrell, it would have been one of the most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed.
If she had said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann never’ll do that; she has to enlarge on her idees. And so she would keep a-askin’ Cassandra in that rapturous, admirin’ way of her’n, if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look and manners that his father had. And Cassandra’s face and Nathan’s would be as red as two red woolen shirts. And then Alzina Ann would look at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathan’s, which is a sort of a Roman one, and the best feature on his face, as Josiah says. She would look from one nose to the other as if she admired both of ’em so she couldn’t hardly stop lookin’ at ’em, and would ask Nathan “if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy resembled his pa?”
And Nathan didn’t say nothin’ but jest set there red as blood, his eyes fixed and glarin’ on the opposite wall, a watchin’ it as close and wishful as if he expected to see a relief party set out from it to befriend him, and shoot him down where he sot, or drag him off into captivity. Anything that would relieve him of his present sufferin’s he would have hailed gladly. I could see that by his mean.
But at supper-time worse was in store for him. Her supper was good—good enough for anybody. She haint got a great deal to do with, but bein’ a little afraid of Alzina Ann, and bein’ proud-spirited and wantin to make a good appearance, Cassandra had sent over and borrowed her mother-in-laws’s white-handled knives, and entirely unbeknown to Alzina Ann I had carried her over some tea-spoons and other things for her comfort, for if Cassandra means to do better, and try to get along and be respectable, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.
But all the time Cassandra was a settin’ the table, Nathan looked worse and worse; he looked so bad it didn’t seem as if we could keep him out of the suller. He realized what was in front of him.
You see Cassandra, bein’ so determined to do better, and start right in the married life, made a practice of makin’ Nathan ask a blessin’. But he bein’ so uncommon bashful, it made it awful hard for him when they had company. He wuzn’t a professor, nor nothin’, and it come tough on him. He looked more and more as if he would sink all the while she was a gettin’ the supper onto the table. And when she was a settin’ the chairs round the table he looked so bad that I didn’t know but what he would have to have help to get to the table. And he would give the most pitiful and beseechin’ looks onto Cassandra that ever was, but she would shake her head at him, and look decided, and then he would look as if he would wilt right down agin.
So, when we got set down to the table, Cassandra give him a real firm look, and he give a kind of a low groan, and shet up his eyes, and Cassandra, and me, and Josiah put on a becomin’ look for the occasion, and shet up our’n, when, all of a sudden, Alzina Ann—she never asked a blessin’ in her own house, and forgot that other folks did—she spoke out in a real loud, admirin’ tone, and says she:
“There! I will say it, I never see such beautiful knives as them be, in my hull life. White-handled knives, with a gilt of sun-flowers on ’em, is something I always wanted to own, and always thought I would own. But never, never did I see any that was so perfectly beautiful as these are.”
And she held her knife out at arm’s length, and looked at it admirin’ly, and almost rapturusly.
Nathan looked bad, dretful bad, for he see by Cassandra’s looks that she wuzn’t goin’ to set him free from the blessin’. And he sort o’ nestled round, and looked under the table, a wishful and melancholy look, as if he had hopes of findin’ a blessin’ there; as if he thought mebby there might be one a layin’ round loose on the floor that he could get holt of, and so be sot free himself. But we didn’t none on us reply to Alzina Ann, and she seemed to kind o’ quiet down, and Cassandra give Nathan another look, and he bent his head, and shet up his eyes agin, and she, and me, and Josiah shet up our’n. And Nathan was jest beginnin’ agin, when Alzina Ann broke out afresh, and says: