“I d’no as I’d call it a display of virtue—I don’t believe I would.”
I wuz sorry for Miss Leicester—sorry as a dog.
Though when I see the epitaph she put above that handsome, fascinatin’ mean creeter (her husband), put it over him her own self, when he wuzn’t by her to skair her and make her stand up for him as pardners will sometimes—I d’no as I wuz very sorry for her. Thinkses I, She either didn’t know enough to know what her pardner wuz up to, or else she wuz sech a fool she didn’t care about it. In either case I felt that my sympathy wuz wasted—of which epitaph more anon.
Wall, we went through a place in the wall they called a portcullis, and over a bridge called a moat.
“The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to have one round our house.”
And Josiah nudged me here, and sez he, “The more I see of moats, the more determined I be to have one round our house.” Sez he, “How stylish it would be and how handy! When you see company comin’ you didn’t want, or peddlers or agents or anything, jest pull back your drawbridge, and there you’d be safe and sound.” Sez he, “I’ve wanted one for years, and now I’m bound on havin’ one.” Sez he, “Ury and I will start one the minute I git home.”
Sez I, “You won’t do any sech thing.”
“Why,” sez he, a-arguin’, “it would be a boon to you, Samantha; hain’t I hearn you groan when onexpected company driv up, and you wuz out of cookin’ or cleanin’ house or anything? All you’d have to do would be jest to speak to Ury or me, and jest as they wuz a-comin’ along, a-thinkin’ of dinner mebby, a-wonderin’ what you’d have—bang! would go the drawbridge, and they’d jest have to back up, and turn round and go home.”
“Yes,” sez I; “how could I face ’em the next Sunday in meetin’? It hain’t feasible,” sez I.