We got back to our hotel, the sun about an hour high. Jest before our bark swep’ into the haven, and while Josiah and Faith had crossed over to the opposite side of our bark, I hearn a voice on the off quarter windward, and I turned round and see to my dismay that it wuz Mr. Pomper. He sez to me in a low voice, while his looks spoke volumes of yellow colored literatoor: “I wish to speak a few words to 111 you alone, mum. Can you give me the opportunity?”
I looked him full in that eye of hisen, a hauty cold look, a look as much as 40 degrees below freeze, and said nothin’ else but jest that look.
“I have somethin’ very important to say to you. Can you hear me?”
Words wuz risin’ to my tongue that would wither him forever, and end the vile persecutions I wuz undergoin’, when before I could speak the gang plank wuz charged back agin Mr. Pomper’s foot in a way that made him leap back like a sportive elephant, and for the moment I wuz free. But as I wended my pensive way up to the hotel, I made up my mind that if he ever approached me agin I would plainly tell him what wuz what, and so end my purturbations of mind; for I felt if it wuz to go on much longer I should lose a pound of flesh, and mebby a pound and a half, in the stiddy wearin’ persecution I wuz undergoin’. And that night at dinner as I ketched the light smoulderin’ in that lonely orb, as it wuz bent on our table, and the corner in parlor and piazza where we wuz ensconced, I wondered anew what wuz the attractions that kep’ Mr. Pomper so stiddy at my shrine, And I got so 112 that I almost hated the good looks that wuz ondoin’ him and me too. And I looked into the glass dreamily as I wadded up my back hair and did up the front, and pinned my cameo pin onto my rich cotton and wool parmetty, and wondered if it wuzn’t my duty to leave off that pin, and change that parmetty for calico, and sort o’ frowzle up my hair onbecomingly in order to wean him from me. But alas! my principles did not seem able to git up onto that bite, so weak are we poor mortals after all our aspirin’ efforts.
One curious thing I have ever noticed among men (and wimmen too) and that is the ease and facility with which they will slip out of statements and idees they have promulgated, and turn around in their tracts as easy and graceful as a dummy before a show case. Now there wuz a party to be gin to the hotel for a charitable purpose, each man and woman present givin’ 25 cents, and then havin’ a social time afterwards, and as the object wuz good I sez to my pardner, “I would like to attend to it.” And he acted fairly skairt and horrow struck at the idee and went on eloquent about old folks at our ages, and with our professions, and our rumatiz, follerin’ up gayety and show. Sez he, 113 “The place for us evenin’s is in our own room readin’ our Bibles and Tracks.”
And I sez as I calmly wadded up my back hair and smoothed my foretop, “Well, I spoze I can go alone if you feel so.”
Then another thought seemed to roust him up; Jealousy seemed to strike her sharp prongs into his slender side, and he sez bitterly, “Yes, goin’ down alone into a perfect mawlstrom of men flirtin’ and actin’!”
“The mawlstrom won’t hurt me,” sez I, “I hain’t goin’ nigh it.” But even as I spoke I thought of Mr. Pomper, and sez to myself, Can I help him from comin’ nigh me? And as if in answer to my onspoken thoughts my pardner sez:
“Mawlstroms will draw anybody in onbeknown to them; they’re deadly dangerous!” And I see him gin a kin’ of a shiver. I wuz touched to the heart by the thought of his devotion, and as I fastened my cameo pin more firmly into the rich folds of parmetty at my neck, I sez:
“Dear Josiah, I don’t know but you’re right. I feel as though I want you near me to protect me.” That melted his heart, but alas, did not affect his pocket book, and he sez, “I would go 114 down with you in a minute, Samantha, but jest consider on the 50 cents we would spend there, how much comfort that would bring to some lonely widder, mebby a blind woman, who is a-hunger and ye fed her not.”