She wuz a perfect stranger to me, though she had lived in Jonesville some five months prior and before I see her.
And Maggie, my son’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, wife, hearn of her through her mother’s second cousin’s wife’s sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey. And Miss Ikey said that she seemed to be one of the best wimmen she ever laid eyes on, and that it would be a real charity to give her work, as she wuz a stranger in the place, without much of anything to git along with, and seemed to be a deep mourner about sunthin’. Though what it wuz she didn’t know, for ever sence she had come to Jonesville she had made a stiddy practice of mindin’ her own bizness and workin’ when she got work.
She had come to Jonesville kinder sudden like, and she had hired her board to Miss Lemuel Ikey’s son’s widow, who kep’ a small—a very small boardin’-house, bein’ put to it for things herself though, likely.
I told Maggie to ask her mother to ask her second cousin’s wife to ask her sister, Miss Lemuel Ikey, to ask her son’s wife what the young woman could do.
And the word come back to me straight, or as straight as could be expected, comin’ through five wimmen who lived on different roads.
“That she wuzn’t a dressmaker, or a mantilly maker, or a tailoress. But she stood ready to do what she could, and needed work dretfully, and would be awful thankful for it.”
Then feelin’ deeply sorry for her, and wantin’ to befriend her, I sent word back in the same way—“To know if she could wash, or iron, or do fancy cookin’. Or could she make hard or soft soap? Or feather flowers? Or knit striped mittens? Or pick geese? Or paint on plaks? Or do paperin’?”
And the answer come back, meanderin’ along through the five—“That she wuzn’t strong enough, or didn’t know how to do any one of these, but she stood ready to do all she could do, and needed work the worst kind.”
Then I tackled the matter myself, as I might better have done in the first place, and went over to see her, bein’ willin’ to give her help in the best way any one can give it, by helpin’ folks to help themselves.
I went over quite early in the mornin’, bein’ on my way for a all-day’s visit to Tirzah Ann’s.