Anon a broad gray stripe, monotony, deadly monotony, and lonesomeness, gray as a rat both on ’em, all loosely twisted together makin’ a wide melancholy stripe. Then a more flowery piece, golden moments, mounts of soul transfiguration, full understandin’, divine hopes and raptures, heart talks, illuminations, all striped in with images of golden rod, evergreen trees pintin’ up into the friendly blue heavens, that leaned down so clost you could almost see into the Sweet Beyond. Singin’ rivulets, soarin’ birds, green fields, rosy clouds. Anon a plain piece, some slazy, as the shuttle seemed to go slower and kinder lazy, and then agin quick strong beats that made the web firm as iron.
Mebby that wuz the time that old Mr. Time hung up that old scythe of hisen for a few minutes on the top bars of the loom, and got in and footed it out for his pardner for a spell, while she rested her old feet or wound her bobbins for another stripe. But such idees are futile, futiler than I often mean to be. ’Tennyrate and anyway all the time, all the time the 190 shuttles moved back and forth to and fro, and old Miss Time’s tapestry widened out.
That summer my pardner had a oncommon good streak of luck, he sold two colts and a yearlin’ heifer for a price that fairly stunted us both, it wuz so big. And his crops turned out dretful well, and he jest laid up money by the handfuls as you may say. And one day we wuz talkin’ about what extreme good luck we’d had for the past year, and we also talked considerable about Tirzah Ann and little Delight, and how they wuz both pimpin’ and puny. The older children away to school wuz doin’ first rate both in health and studies, but Tirzah Ann’s health wuz such that Whitfield had to keep a girl and pay doctor’s bills, and I sez to Josiah:
“I am sorry for ’em as I can be, and if this goes on much longer there don’t seem much chance of Whitfield’s buildin’ his house on Shadow Island this summer.”
And Josiah sez, “No indeed! if he can pay the doctor’s bills and help, he will do well. But,” sez he, “he is goin’ to have quite a good job up to his folkses.”
His uncle, Jotham Minkley, who is forehanded and a ship builder up in Maine, had invited Whitfield to come and take charge of some 191 bizness for him, and he said he must bring Tirzah Ann and Delight. So it wuz arranged that they wuz goin’ to stay for some time. We all thought the change would do Tirzah Ann good, and then Whitfield had been promised good pay for his work. And then wuz the time I tackled my pardner on the subject I had thought over so long. He looked so sort o’ mournful over the hard times Whitfield wuz havin’, and Tirzah Ann’s and Delight’s enjoyment of poor health, that I thought now wuz the appinted time for me to onfold this subject to him. This idee wuz that while Whitfield and Tirzah Ann wuz away up to Maine we should build a pretty little house for ’em on Shadow Island. “For,” sez I, “the health and life of Tirzah Ann and Delight may hang in the balances, and if anything will help ’em I believe that dear old Saint Lawrence will.” But Josiah demurred strongly on account of the expense. In fact I had to use some of my strongest arguments to convince him of the feasibility of my plans.
One of my arguments wuz that in all probability all our property would before long descend onto the children, and so why not use some now for ’em, while they wuz sufferin’ for the use 192 on’t. That wuz one of my arguments, and my other one wuz, that he couldn’t take any of his property with him. But he had got kinder mad and when I told him in a solemn tone, “Josiah Allen, you know you can’t take any of your property with you when you die,” he snapped out, “I don’t know whether I can or not; it won’t be as you say about it.”
“Well,” sez I, in lofty axents and quotin’ Skripter, “there is only one way you can take your property with you, and that is to send it on before you. Make friends with the Mammon of your wealth so that when you fail here it may receive you into a everlastin’ habitation. Turn it into angels of Gratitude and Love that may be waitin’ to welcome you. Do good with your money. Lend to the Lord,” sez I.
And Josiah wuz so pudgicky, he snapped out, “I didn’t know as the Lord wanted to borry any money.”
But I gin him such a talkin’ to that I brung him to a sense of his sinful talk, and right then while he wuz conscience smut for as much as seven minutes, I brung him round to the idee of buildin’ the house. But it wuz a gradual bringin’.