But now she dassent leggo a minit to git her handkerchief, so she rode along weepin' silently, and a fearful sight for men or angels, but truly a cryin' monument of wifely devotion.
As she moved off, I could see at the first strain her dress waist, bein' one of the short round ones with a belt, had bust asunder, leavin' a white waist of cotton flannel between 'em, which seemed to be a-growin' wider and wider all the time. (She wears cotton flannel for her health.)
As I see this, and not knowin' what would ensue and take place in her clothin', I cast onto the wind my own fears, and the shrinkin' timidity of my sect, and graspin' my umbrell in my hand, I run along by the side of the lofty quadreped, a-tryin' to reach up and fix her a little.
But I could not; her position wuz too lofty, the mount wuz too precipitous on which she sot.
She see me, but she didn't stop her cryin', and the faces she wuz a-makin' wuz pitiful in the extreme, and skairful to anybody that hadn't seen 'em so much as I had. She wuz half bent, which made her cotton-flannel infirmity harder to witness.
The camel wuz a-swayin' fearful from side to side, and a-lurchin' forwards and a lurchin' backwards at a dangerous rate.
Oh, how dizzy-headed Selinda must have been! How skairt and how dretful her feelin's wuz!
Sez I, "Dismount to once, Selinda Dagget."
"No," sez she; "Bizer has placed me here, and here I will stay."