He said that he could git the same things through a dealer he knew in New York considerable cheaper, “but,” sez he, “it doesn’t have the same name. Anything brought from Paris is so dreadful distinguished.”
And I spozed that he wuz in the right on’t, and I felt that I too would love to branch out and buy sunthin’ that I could tell the neighbors come right from Paris, France.
And I beset Josiah to buy me a summer shawl, but he said that he’d seen my summer shawl for so many years wropped round the form he loved so, that the idee of seein’ me in any other shawl wuz repugnant to him.
Wall, then I laid to and tried to git him to buy me a handkerchief pin; but he said that old cameo that I had on looked so beautiful. He said so many memories hung round that shell face on it that he couldn’t bear to see me with any other on.
And so it wuz with my winter bunnet. Sez he, “Oh, the times I have seen that bunnet a-frontin’ up to me when I’ve stood by the meetin’-house door a-waitin’ for you, and it looked so perfectly lovely to me, as I stood there with cold legs and I ketched sight on it a-hallowin’ your face round as I see it a-comin’ towards me! No other bunnet could ever look to me as that did.”
And so with my shues, and my gloves, and every other article; they wuz all so dear to him, and he showed his affection to ’em and me so plain that I couldn’t bear to hurt his feelin’s by gittin’ any new ones.
A-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels.
But I sez, “I need some towels, and have got to have ’em.” So he give a reluctant consent, and I swung out and bought two new huckabuck towels, and I spoze Miss Gowdey and Sister Ganzey will be surprised and sort of envious to see me a-wipin’ my face on sech genteel towels, brung from sech a fashionable place, for I lay out to use ’em and not lay ’em up—for, as the Sammist sez, slightly changed—
“You may lay up towels, but how do you know who shall gather ’em?”