And so we did. Blandina and I wanted to go there in the first place, so we felt well about it. We had fulfilled our duties as chaperones to the fullest extent, and had also got our own two ways in the end, which is always comfortin' to a woman.
We found Miss Huff settled in a pleasant street in a good comfortable home, not so very fur away from the Fair ground. She's a widder with one son, young and good lookin', jest home from school; and a aged parent, toothless and no more hair on his head than on the cover of my glass butter dish. And I'll be hanged if I knowed which one on 'em Blandina paid the most devoted attention to whilst we wuz there, but nothin' light and triflin'.
She is likely, her morals mebby bein' able to stand more bein' so sort o' withy and soft than if they wuz more hard and brittle, they could bend round considerable without breakin'.
And Miss Huff had also a little grand-niece, Dorothy Evans, whose mother had passed away, and Miss Huff bein' next of kin had took into her family to take care of. Dretful clever I thought it wuz of Miss Huff. Dorothy's mother, I guess, didn't have much faculty and spent everything as she went along; she had an annuity that died with her, but she had been well enough off so she could hire a nurse for the child, an elderly colored woman, Aunt Tryphena by name, who out of love for the little one had offered to come to Miss Huff's just to be near the little girl.
And Dotie, as they well called her, for everyone doted on her, wuz as sweet a little fairy as I ever see, her pretty golden head carried sunshine wherever it went. And her big blue eyes, full of mischief sometimes, wuz also full of the solemn sweetness of them "Who do always behold the face of the Father."
I took to her from the very first, and so did Josiah and Blandina. The hull family loved and petted her from Miss Huff and her old father down to Billy, who alternately petted and teased her.
To Aunt Tryphena she wuz an object of perfect adoration. And Aunt Tryphena wuz a character uneek and standin' alone. When she wuz made the mould wuz throwed away and never used afterwards. She follered Dorothy round like her shadow and helped make the beds and keep the rooms tidy, a sort of chamber-maid, or ruther chamber-woman, for she wuz sixty if she wuz a day.
Besides Aunt Tryphena Miss Huff had two more girls to cook and clean. She had good help and sot a good table, and Aunt Feeny as they called her wuz a source of constant amusement and interest; but of her more anon.
We got to Miss Huff's in the afternoon and rested the rest of that day and had a good night's sleep.
In the mornin' Josiah, who went out at my request before breakfast to buy a little peppermint essence, come in burnin' with indignation, his morals are like iron (most of the time).