CHAPTER SIX
IN WHICH I DRAW THE MATRIMONIAL LINE ROUND MY PARDNER AND ALSO KEEP MY EYE ON MR. POMPER
The next mornin’ Whitfield and Tirzah went home, Josiah and I thinkin’ we would stay a few days longer. And what should I git but a letter from Cousin Faithful Smith sayin’ that her Aunt Petrie beyond Kingston wuz enjoyin’ poor health, and felt that she must have Faith come and visit her before she went West. So she wuz goin’ to cut short her visit to the Smithses and go to her Aunt Petrie’s on her way to the West, and as she had heard Josiah and I wuz to the Islands, she would stop and stay a few days with us there. And as the letter had been delayed, she wuz to be there that very day on the afternoon boat. So of course Josiah and I met her at Clayton. And I went to the boardin’-house keeper to see if I could git her a room. 90
But she wuz full, Miss Dagget wuz; and when anybody is full there is no more to be said; so with many groanin’s from my pardner, on account of the higher price, we concluded we would git rooms at the hotel, that big roomy place, with broad piazzas runnin’ round it and high ruffs. And as Josiah said bitterly, the ruffs wuzn’t any higher than the prices. And I told him the prices wuzn’t none too high for what we got, and I sez, “We are gittin’ along in years and don’t often rush into such high expenses, so we’ll make the venter.”
And he groaned out, “Good reason why we don’t make the venter often, unless we want to go on the Town!”
And then he kinder brightened up and wondered if he couldn’t make a dicker with the hotel-keeper to take a yearlin’ steer to pay for our two boards.
And I sez, “What duz he want of a yearlin’ steer here in the midst of a genteel fashion resort?”
And he snapped me up and said he didn’t know as there wuz anything onfashionable or ongenteel about a likely yearlin’. Sez he, “I’ll bet they’d take it at Coney Island.”