Sez I calmly, “Yes, I should know a man wrote that if I read it in the darkest night that ever rolled, and I wuz blindfolded.”
“Wall,” sez he anxiously, “don’t it suit you? Don’t you think it is uneek, sunthin’ new and strikin’?”
“Oh, no,” sez I, “no, it hain’t nuthin’ new at all; but mebby it is strikin’—or that is,” sez I, “it depends on who is struck.”
“Wall,” sez he, “it is dumb discouragin’, after a man racks his brains to try to get up sunthin’ strong and beautiful, to think a woman can’t be tickled and animated with it.”
Sez I calmly, “I hain’t said that I wuzn’t suited with it.” And sez I with still more severe axents, for I see he looked disappointed, “I will say further, Josiah, that it meets my expectations fully; it is jest what I should expect a male pardner to write.”
“Wall,” sez he, lookin’ pleaseder and more satisfieder, “I thought you would appreciate it after you thought it over for a spell.”
“I do, Josiah,” sez I, turnin’ over the sock I wuz a mendin’ and attacktin’ a new weak spot in the heel, “I do appreciate it fully.”
Josiah looked real tickled and sort o’ proud, and I kep’ on in calm axents and a darnin’ too, for the hole wuz big, and night wuz a descendin’ down onto us. And I could hear Aunt Mela’s preparations for supper down below, and I wanted to get the sock done before I went down-stairs. So I sez, sez I:
“I have thought about it sometimes too, Josiah, and I have got it kinder fixed out in my mind what I would have on your tombstun—if I lived through it,” sez I with a deep sithe.
“What wuz it?” sez he in a contented tone, for he knows I love him. “It is poetry, hain’t it?”