But all of a sudden, jest before she got through recitin’ it, this woman with the brood of girls gathered ’em in front of her, as if danger wuz behind her, and shooed ’em out of the room. And I declare for it, and I am tellin’ the truth, as she stood up sweepin’ out, I see way down below their shoulder blades, every single blade. They went into the room where they wuz dancing, it wuz there they sought safety from indelicacy and unrefined suggestions, but for them that see ’em come in the sight wuz fur worse than the back view, yes fur worse.
But no sooner did the anxious mother chase her brood out in front of her than another woman, whose dress wuz so low it is a wonder it held onto her till she got out, she swep’ out with her two daughters in front of her, one on ’em dressed in a string of pearls and a ostrich tip, and the other one bare as she wuz born almost from her waist up, every mite of their dresses almost layin’ on the carpet. They fled from the contagion of indelicacy into the ballroom, and went to talkin’ Bible together and condemnin’ bitterly the low, immodest woman who had dared to recite such a poem before their innocent daughters. They had guarded ’em so, they said from everything and anything that could by any possibility suggest an indelicate thought or act, and now in one moment to have the veil dropped from their innocent eyes.
And thus the mothers complained until jest such men as the verses described walked up and put their arms round the prettiest and most naked of the girls, held ’em as close to their vile hearts as if they wuz runnin’ away with ’em, and jumped round the room with ’em, the happy mothers lookin’ on and smilin’ placidly, seein’ the girls’ pretty flushed faces layin’ right up against the villians’ breastbones. And it wuzn’t a great while before all the girls had some strangers’ arms round ’em and wuz prancin’ round the room.
Well, a man I had met in Loontown come up to me and asked me sunthin’ about my books, and that seemed to set the fashion, for I don’t know how many come up to me and asked me about ’em. And most every one on ’em said they had read my books to a dyin’ friend, or to the aged, them that had lost their minds, as fur as I could make out, or wuz so fur gone they couldn’t sense their trouble. But I thanked ’em, every one on ’em, and felt it, too, it is so sweet to think on that you have soothed last hours of the mentally shattered and the infirm in intellect, I got quite a lot of comfort out of the thought.
Two or three wimmen there had had friends who had read ’em, they wuz in distant parts of the country, but I wuz glad to hear from ’em and hear they had read ’em. And then three or four, and mebby more, asked me if I lived in Boston; I don’t know what under the sun there wuz about me that put that thought into their heads, unless it wuz my bunnet, the ribbin bow on it did rise up noble and sort of majestic above my foretop; mebby it put ’em in mind of Bunker Hill. I knew it wuz a bunnet calculated to impress the beholder almost with awe, it wuz so sort o’ high headed and literary lookin’. Josiah didn’t want me to git it, but I knew it would give me a high learnt look, and, when they asked me if I lived in Boston, I felt I had made a good choice.
Well, we got home perfectly beat out, and my pardner fearfully cross, though, as I wuz as good as my word and got him a good but hasty lunch, his crossness moderated and he went to bed in considerable good sperits, and we slep’ late the next day and no serious bad results follered.
CHAPTER XX.
The time drawed near for me to go to Tamer’s and visit with Celestine, and I cooked up good vittles and sights of ’em, knowin’ that in my absence no paneky would soothe like that. I didn’t mean to stay but two nights, but didn’t know what might happen, they wuz such cases to urge me to stay when I got there.