It wuz a good-lookin' head-dress.
Her figger wuz noble, jest as majestic and perfect as the human form can be. And it stood up there jest as the Lord meant wimmen to stand, not lookin' like a hour-glass or a pismire, but a good sensible waist on her, jest as human creeters ort to have.
I don't know what dressmakers would think of her. I dare presoom to say they would look down on her because she didn't taper. And they would probable be disgusted because she didn't wear cossets.
But to me one of the greatest and grandest uses of that noble figger wuz to stand up there a-preachin' to more than a million wimmen daily of the beauty and symmetry of a perfect form, jest as the Lord made it, before it wuz tortured down into deformity and disease by whalebones and cosset strings.
Imagine that stately, noble presence a-scrunchin' herself in to make a taper on herself—or to have her long, graceful, stately draperies cut off into a coat-tail bask—the idee!
Here wuz the beauty and dignity of the human form, onbroken by vanity and folly. And I did hope my misguided sect would take it to heart.
And of all the crowds of wimmen I see a-standin' in front of it admirin' it, I never see any of 'em, even if their own waists did look like pismires, but what liked its looks.
Till one day I did see two tall, spindlin', fashionable-lookin' wimmen a-lookin' at it, and one sez to the other:
"Oh, how sweet she would look in elbow-sleeves and a tight-fittin' polenay!"
"Yes," sez the other; "and a bell skirt ruffled almost to the waist, and a Gainsboro hat, and a parasol."