Little boys and little girls (beautiful creeters, the hull on ’em), for if their faces, every one on ’em, wuzn’t jest perfect! They all had the beauty of childhood and happiness. And crowds of older folks wuz there. And some happy young couples, youths and maidens, wuz a settin’ round, and a wanderin’ off by themselves, and amongst them we see the form of Ardelia, and a young man by her side.
She wuz a leanin’ on the stun railin’ that fences in the trout pond. She wuz evidently a lookin’ down pensively at the shinin’ dartin’ figures of the trout, a movin’ round down in the cool waters.
I wuzn’t nigh enough to ’em to see really how her companion looked, but even at that distance I recognized a certain air and atmosphere a surroundin’ Ardelia that I knew meant poetry.
And Josiah recognized it too, and he sez to me, “We may as well go round the hill and out to the road that way,” sez he, (a pointin’ to the way furthest from Ardelia) “and we may as well be a goin’.”
That man abhors poetry.
Wall, we wandered down into the high way and havin’ most the hull afternoon before us, we kinder sauntered round amongst the stores that wuz pretty nigh to where we wuz. There is some likely good lookin’ stores kep’ by the natives, as they call the stiddy dwellers in Saratoga. Good lookin’ respectable stores full of comfort and consolation, for the outer or inner man or woman. (I speak it in a mortal sense).
But with the hundred thousand summer dwellers, who flock here with the summer birds, and go out before the swallers go south, there comes lots of summer stores, and summer shops, and picture studios, etc., etc. Like big summer bird’s-nests, all full and a runnin’ over with summer wealth, to be blowed down by the autumn winds. These shops are full of everything elegant and beautiful and useful. The most gorgeous vases and plaks and chiner ware of every description and color, and books, and jewelry, and rugs, and fans, and parasols, and embroideries, and laces, and etc., etc., etc.
And one shop seemed to be jest full of drops of light, light and sunshine, crystalized in golden, clear, tinted amber. There wuz a young female statute a standin’ up in the winder of that store with her hands outstretched and jest a drippin’ with the great glowin’ amber drops. Some wuz a hangin’ over her wings for she was a young flyin’ female. And I thought to myself it must be she would fly better with all that golden light a drippin’ about her.
Josiah liked her looks first rate. And he liked the looks of some of the pictures extremely. There wuz lots of places all full of pictures. A big collection of water colors, though as Josiah said and well said, How they could get so many colors out of water wuz a mystery to him.
But my choice out of all the pictures I see, wuz a little one called “The Sands of Dee.” It wuz “Mary a callin’ the cattle home.” The cruel treacherus water wuz a risin’ about her round bare ankles as she stood there amongst the rushes with her little milk-bucket on her arm.