But good land! I knew it wuz a excuse. I knew she wouldn’t give nothin’ not if her right hand had the num palsy, and you could stick a pin into it—no, she wouldn’t give, not if her right hand was cut off and throwed away.
Wall, Miss Bombus, old Dr. Bombus’es widow, wouldn’t give—and for all the world—I went right there from Miss Whymper’ses. Miss Bombus wouldn’t give because I didn’t put the names in the Jonesville Augur or Gimlet, for she said, “Let your good deeds so shine.”
“Why,” says I, “Miss Whymper wouldn’t give because she wanted to give secreter, and you won’t give because you want to give publicker, and you both quote Scripter, but it don’t seem to help the Smedleys much.”
She said that probably Miss Whymper was wrestin’ the Scripter to her own destruction.”
“Wall,” says I, “while you and Miss Whymper are a wrestin’ the Scripter, what will become of the Smedleys? It don’t seem right to let them ‘freeze to death, and starve to death, while we are a debatin’ on the ways of Providence.”
But she didn’t tell, and she wouldn’t give.
A woman wuz there a visitin’, Miss Bombus’es aunt, I think, and she spoke up and said that she fully approved of her niece Bombus’es decision. And she said, “As for herself, she never give to any subject that she hadn’t thoroughly canvassed.”
Says I, “There they all are in that little hut, you can canvass them at any time. Though,” says I, thoughtfully, “Marvilla might give you some trouble.” And she asked why.
And I told her she had the rickets so she couldn’t stand still to be canvassed, but she could probably follow her up and canvass her, if she tried hard enough. And says I, “There is old Grandma Smedley, over eighty, and five children under eight, you can canvass them easy.”
Says she, “The Bible says, ‘Search the Sperits.’”