Samantha at the World's Fair

by Marietta Holley

"What do you want the rope for? I don't know of any rope, only the bed-cord up in the old chamber."

At these words, that agitated, skairt man rushed right upstairs, I a-follerin' him, summer-savory still in my hands, and fear and tremblin' in my mean.

And I see him dash up to the old bedstead in the attick, dash off the bedclothes and the feather-bed, and beginnin' oncordin' of it.

I then laid hands on him, and commanded him to desist.

"I won't desist," sez he, "I won't desist."

There wuz I, still a-holdin' him by the back of his frock—he had on his barn clothes.

"Then do you tell your pardner the meanin' of your actions imegetly and to once."

"I hain't got time," sez he, and oh! how he wuz onriddlin' that old bedstead of the rope; the fuzz fairly flew offen the rope as he yanked it through them holes, and twice I wuz hit by it voyalently in my face, as I strove to hold him, and elicit some information out of him.

But I could git nothin' but hard breathin' and muttered oathes till the bed-cord wuz all onloosened, and then he gathered it over his arm and started on the run for the door, I a-follerin'.