The governess thought this coachman wuz a Marquiz in disguise, son of a long line of Earls, he said he wuz, when questioned about it. But he wuzn’t no such thing; his Pa wuz in the peanut line on the Bowery. The governess would have gladly married him herself, but she wuz older and kinder humbly, so he proposed to Eudora, and they run away and wuz married. There wuz no need of their runnin’ away, there wuz no one to interfere with ’em, for Mr. Green Smythe out on the back steps wouldn’t have noticed what wuz goin’ on. But the governess thought it would be so much more romantick to depart by midnight sarahuptishusly, so I spoze she helped rig up a rope ladder by which Medora descended to her coachman.
Well, he didn’t use her well, it wuzn’t hereditary in his family to use wimmen well, they generally struck at ’em with their fists, instead of polite tongue abuse when they offended ’em, and take it with her ill usage and the wild clamor her Ma made when she discovered the marriage, the poor awakening wits of Eudora Francesca fled utterly. The coachman wuz bought off with a small sum of ready money, and Eudora wuz taken back to the asylum for good and all.
Well, as I say, the two little Tweedle children, boy and girl, are queer little creeters, they are about eight or nine years old now, and are with their Ma to Jonesville for the summer, with a nurse for each one. The baby, the only child of Mr. Smith, is not with its Ma to Jonesville, he is at another private asylum, not fur from the one that Eudora Francesca is in; it is an asylum for idiots and a sort of school to try to teach ’em what they can be taught.
And that he is there isn’t the fault of any nurse. No, I should say it riz higher in profession and wuz the fault of the medical fraternity. All the year before he wuz born Miss Green Smythe wuz very delicate, but bein’ so fashionable, she considered it necessary to wear a tight, a very tight cosset till the very day the baby wuz born, and her doctor never said a word agin it, so fur as I know, but realizin’ how delicate she wuz and that her strength must be kep’ up in some way, he ordered her to take stimulants, and she drinked, and she drinked, and she drinked. Why, I spoze from what I’ve hearn that she jest took barrels of wine and champagne and brandy. She never went half way in anything, not even Hottentots, of which more hereafter. And the stimulants bein’ ordered she drinked continually. And when the boy wuz born it wuz a perfect idiot. Her fashionable doctor who ordered the stimulants said it wuz a “melancholy dispensation of Providence.”
The doctor who attended Mr. Green Smythe, and an old friend of hisen, said it wuz “a melancholy judgment on fools.” He wuz a quick tempered man, but honest and high learnt, and he wuz mad at the fashionable doctor and Miss Green Smythe, too. Well, it cured her of drinkin’, anyway; she had always wanted a boy dretfully, and when the only one she had ever had wuz born a idiot it mortified her most to death, and she could never bear the sight of it, and had never laid her eyes on it since it wuz took to the private asylum.
A pretty lookin’ child, too, they said it wuz, only not knowin’ anything. They said about this time Ebenezer Smith’s hair changed from iron gray to pretty near white, for he loved the baby, his only child and heir to all his millions. And he kep’ lookin’ and watchin’ for some signs of sense in it for a long time. And the only reason he gin his consent to have it go to the asylum wuz that he didn’t know but they might help it to some spark of reason. He read his old letters more than ever, they said, out on the back steps, and looked more at Alice’s face in the old velvet covered case, and then he would look away from that sweet, fresh face off onto the sky or ocean as the case might be, either in New York or Newport, he would look off for some time and wuz spozed to be thinkin’ of a good many things.
Well, it wuz to get a divorce for Medora and see to her own Tweedle bizness that Miss Green Smythe had come to Jonesville. She had employed a big New York lawyer, but he hadn’t been very successful, and she wanted Thomas J.’s help. Tweedle had once lived in this vicinity for some time, and she wanted Thomas J. to try and collect evidence for her and help her. But he will walk round the subject on every side and look at it sharp before he tackles it.
I spoze it is a great compliment to have such rich folks as the Green Smythes so anxious to secure his services. But that won’t make any difference to our son, he won’t touch it unless he thinks she is in the right on’t. He follers these two old rules that his Ma laid down before him when he first set out to be a lawyer. Sez I, “Always, Thomas Jefferson, foller them two rules, and you will be sure to come out right in the end:
“First rule, ‘Be sure you are in the right on’t,’” then,