Her pretty innocent face wuz a lookin’ off into the shadows, and the last ray of sunset was a fallin’ on her. Maybe it wuz the pity on’t that struck so hard as I looked at it, to know that the “cruel, crawli’n foam” wuz so soon to creep over the sweet young face and round limbs. And there seemed to be a shadow of the comin’ fate, a sweepin’ in on the gray mist behind her.
I stood for some time, and I don’t know but longer, a lookin’ at it, my Josiah a standin’ placidly behind me, a lookin’ over my shoulder and enjoyin’ of it too, till the price wuz mentioned. But at that fearful moment, my pardner seized me by the arm, and walked me so voyalently out of that store and down the walk that I did not find and recover myself till we stood at the entrance to Philey street.
And I wuz so out of breath, by his powerful speed, that she didn’t look nateral to me, I hardly recognized Philey. But Josiah hurried me down Philey and wanted to get my mind offen Mary Dee I knew, for he says as we come under a sign hangin’ down over the road, “Horse Exchange,” sez he, “What do you say, Samantha, do you spose I could change off the old mair, for a camel or sunthin’? How would you like a camel to ride?”
I looked at him in speechless witherin’ silence, and he went on hurridly, “It would make a great show in Jonesville, wouldn’t it, to see us comin’ to meetin’ on a camel, or to see us ridin’ in a cutter drawed by one. I guess I’ll see about it, some other time.”
And he went on hurridly, and almost incoherently as we see another sign, over the road - oh! how vollubly he did talk - “Quick, Livery.”
“I hate to see folks so dumb conceeted! Now I don’t spose that man has got any hosses much faster than the old mair.”
“‘Wing’s!’ Shaw! I don’t believe no such thing - a livery on wings. I don’t believe a word on’t. And you wouldn’t ketch me on one on ’em, if they had!”
“‘Yet Sing!’” sez he, a lookin’ accost the street into a laundry house. “What do I care if you do sing? ’Taint of much account if you do any way. I sing sometimes, I yet sing,” says he.
“Sing,” sez I in neerly witherin’ tone. “I’d love to hear you sing, I haint yet and I’ve lived with you agoin’ on 30 years.”