And I felt that I couldn’t cry nor weep (and told Josiah so), the tears jest dripped down my face in a stream, but I wouldn’t weep—for as I said to myself:
While the Jonesvillians had been a disputin’ back and forth, and wrestin’ Scripter, and the meanin’ of Providence in regard to helpin’ Grandma Smedley and gittin’ her a comfortable place to stay in, and somethin’ to eat, the Lord himself had took the case in hand and had gin her a home and the bread that satisfies.”
Chapter IV.
ARDELIA AND ABRAM GEE.
Wall, I don’t s’pose there had been a teacher in our deestrict for years and years that gin’ better satisfaction than Ardelia Tutt. Good soft little creeter, the scholars any one of ’em felt above hurtin’ on her or plagin’ her any way. She sort a made ’em feel they had to take care on her, she wuz so sort a helpless actin’, and good natured, and yet her learnin’ wuz good, fust-rate.
Yes, Ardelia was thought a sight on in Jonesville by scholars and parents and some that wuzn’t parents. One young chap in perticiler, Abram Gee by name, who had just started a baker’s shop in Jonesville, he fell so deep in love with her from the very start that I pitied him from about the bottom of my heart. It wuz at our house that he fell.
The young folks of our meetin’-house had a sort of a evenin’ meetin’ there to see about raisin’ some money for the help of the steeple—repairin’ of it. Abram is a member, and so is Ardelia, and I see the hull thing. I see him totter and I see him fall. And prostrate he wuz, from that first night. Never was there a feller that fell in love deeper, or lay more helpless. And Ardelia liked him, that wuz plain to see; at fust as I watched and see him totter, I thought she wuz a sort o’ wobblin’ too, and when he fell deep, deep in love, I looked to see her a follerin’ on. But Ardelia, as soft as she wuz, had an element of strength. She wuz ambitious. She liked Abram, but she had read novels a good deal, and she had for years been lookin’ for a prince to come a ridin’ up to their dooryard in disguise with a crown on under his hat, and woo her to be his bride.
And so she braced herself against the sweet influence of love and it wuz tuff—I could see for myself that it wuz, when she had laid out to set on a throne by the side of a prince, he a holdin’ his father’s scepter in his hand—to descend from that elevation and wed a husband who wuz a moulder of bread, with a rollin’ pin in his hand. It wuz tuff for Ardelia; I could see right through her mind (it wuzn’t a great distance to see), and I could see jest how a conflict wuz a goin’ on between love and ambition.
But Abram had my best wishes, for he wuz a boy I had always liked. The Gees had lived neighbor to us for years. He wuz a good creeter and his bread wuz delicious (milk emptin’s). He wuz a sort of a hard, sound lookin’ chap, and she, bein’ so oncommon soft, the contrast kinder sot each other off and made ’em look well together.