“I’m tellin’ the livin’ truth, as she towered up in front on me, her breast opened and a man’s face looked out on me.” (See page 253)
Settin’ there lookin’ off on them mighty everlastin’ waves, forever flowin’ back and forth, forth and back, the world of the flimsy and the false seemed to pass away and the Real more nigh to me than it did in the painted land of shams and onreality I had been passin’ through. And as I meditated on the disgraceful sight I had seen—that gaudy, guilty creeter with a man concealed in her breast. For if it wuzn’t a guilty secret, why wuz the door shet and fastened tight, till the searchlight of a woman’s indignant eyes brought him to light?
Thinkin’ it over calmly and bein’ reasonable and just, my feelin’s over that female kinder softened down, and I sez to myself, what if there wuz a open winder or door into all our hearts, for outsiders to look in, what would they see? Curious sights, homely ones and beautiful, happy ones and sorrowful, and some 256 kinder betwixt and between. Sacred spots that the nearest ones never got a glimpse on. Eyes that look acrost the coffee pot at you every mornin’ never ketched sight on ’em, nor the ones that walk up and down in them hidden gardens. Some with veiled faces mebby, some with reproachful orbs, some white and still, some pert and sassy.
Nothin’ wicked, most likely; nothin’ the law could touch you for; but most probable it might make trouble if them affectionate eyes opposite could behold ’em, for where love is there is jealousy, and a lovin’ woman will be jealous of a shadder or a scare-crow. It is nateral nater and can’t be helped. But if she stopped to think on’t, she herself has her hid-away nooks in her heart, dark or pleasant landscapes, full of them, you never ketch a glimpse on do the best you can. And jealous curosity goes deep. What would Josiah see through my heart’s open door? What would I see in hisen? It most skairs me to think on’t. No, it hain’t best to have open doors into hearts. Lots of times it would be resky; not wrong, you know, but jest resky.
Thus I sot and eppisoded, lookin’ off onto the melancholy ocean, listenin’ to her deep sithes, 257 when onbid come the agonizin’ thought, “Had Josiah Allen backslid so fur and been so full of remorse and despair, that his small delicate brain had turned over with him, and he had throwed himself into the arms of the melancholy Ocean? Wuz her deep, mournful sithes preparin’ me for the heart-breakin’ sorrow?” I couldn’t abear the thought, and I riz up and walked away. As I did so a bystander sez, “Have you been up on the Awful Tower?”
“No,” sez I, “I’ve been through awful things, enough, accidental like, without layin’ plans and climbin’ up on ’em.” But Hope will always hunch Anxiety out of her high chair in your head and stand up on it. I thought I would go upstairs into another part of the buildin’ and mebby I might ketch a glimpse of my pardner in the dense crowd below.
And if you’ll believe it, as I wuz walkin’ upstairs as peaceful as our old brindle cow goin’ up the south hill paster, my skirts begun to billow out till they got as big as a hogsit. I didn’t care about its bein’ fashion to not bulge out round the bottom of your skirts but hobble in; but I see the folks below wuz laughin’ at me, and it madded me some when I hadn’t done a thing, only jest walk upstairs peaceable. And 258 I don’t know to this day what made my clothes billow out so.