And every evenin’ he would come to me and say—“Good-night, Aunt Samantha, good-bye till mornin’.”
And I would kiss him earnest and sweet, and say back to him, “Good-night, little pardner, till mornin’.”
And after he went home, Josiah and I would talk about him a sight, and wonder what the little pardner wuz doin’, and how he wuz lookin’ from day to day. And I would often go into the parlor, where his picter stood on the top shelf of the what-not, and stand and look dreamily at it. There he wuz in his little black velvet suit and a big bunch of English violets pinned on one side. The earnest eyes would look back at me dretful tender like and good. The mouth that held that wonderful sweet and sort o’ curous expression, as if he wuz thinkin’ of sunthin’ beautiful that we didn’t know anything about, would sort o’ smile back at me.
And he seemed to be a-sayin’ to me, as he said that day a-lookin’ out into the clear sky—
“I’ll work for them poor people!”
And I answered back to him out loud once or twice onbeknown to me, and sez I, “I believe you will, little pardner.”
And Josiah asked me who I wuz a-talkin’ to. He hollered out from the kitchen.
And I sez, “Ahem—ahem,” and kinder coughed. I couldn’t explain to my pardner jest how I felt, for I didn’t know myself hardly.
Wall, it run along for some time—Martin a-writin’ to me quite often, always a-talkin’ about his little pardner and Alice, and how they wuz a-gittin’ along, and a-invitin’ us to visit ’em.
And at last there came sech a pressin’ invitation from Alice to come and see ’em that I had to succumb.