They made the room look perfectly beautiful. And they each of ’em, the two childern and their companions, brought home a motto framed in nice plush and gilt frames, which they put up on each side of the settin’ room, and left them there as a present to their pa and me. They think a sight of us, the childern do—and visey versey, and the same.
One of ’em wuz worked in gold letters on a red back-ground “Bear Ye One Another’s Burdens.” And the other wuz “Feed my Lambs.”
They think a sight on us, the childern do—they knew them mottoes would highly tickle their pa and me. And they did seem to kinder invigorate up all the folks that come to the party.
And they wuz seemingly legions. Why, they come, and they kept a comin’. And it did seem as if every one of ’em had tried to see who could bring the most. Why, they brought enough to keep the Smedleys comfortable all winter long. It wuz a sight to see ’em.
It wuz a curious sight, too, to set and watch what some of the folks said and done as they brought their pounds in.
I had to be to the table all the time a’most, for I wuz appointed a committee, or a board—I s’pose it would be more proper to call myself a board, more business like. Wall, I wuz the board appointed to lay the things on—to see that they wuz all took care of, and put where they couldn’t get eat up, or any other casuality happen to ’em.
And I declare if some of the queerest lookin’ creeters didn’t come up to the table and talk to me. There wuz lots of ’em there that I didn’t know, folks that come from Zoar, Jim Smedley’s old neighborhood.
There wuz a long table stretched acrost one end of the settin’ room, and I stood behind it some as if I wuz a dry goods merchant or grocery, and some like a preacher.
And the women would come up to me and talk. There wuz one woman who got real talkative to me before the evenin’ wuz out. She said her home wuz over two miles beyond Zoar.