I arrove on the appinted day with no casualities, and they wuz dretful glad to see me, Anna and Jack specially, Tamer and Cicero seemed to be sort o’ absent-minded, I most knew they had got holt of some new novel, and so it turned out, it wuz “The Roaring Avenger of the Bloody Path” that wuz under perusal, and they couldn’t hardly brook to have their attentions drawed off a minute, but Tamer finished it the afternoon of the day I got there, and then she seemed inclined to talk more, but her talk wuz real deprestin’. She had got the sinevetus she said beyend the doubt.
And I said, “Don’t you believe you got it runnin’ after Arabeller?”
And she said, with a sithe, “Mebby it wuz so, and,” sez she, “if it wuzn’t so onfashionable to keep house without a servant I wouldn’t keep her an hour, for she acts worse than ever and makes me more trouble than she duz good, enough sight.”
Celestine seemed real glad to see me when she could git her attentions offen her landscapes and views and placks and things. She is a tall, wapey lookin’ woman and wears spectacles, and I don’t spoze she sees much through them specks only her pictures, and works of Art, as she calls ’em. She don’t seem to see her little girl hardly any, a sweet, pretty child, too, a gentle, quiet little thing with eyes that seem to be on the lookout for tender looks, and a sweet, sad mouth that seems sort o’ grievin’ for the kisses she don’t git.
For sure as I am alive durin’ them three days and two nights I wuz there I didn’t see Celestine take one mite of notice of little Mary, only to hook up her dress once or twice and tie back her hair, and she did them in a kind of a absent-minded, dreamy way as if the child’s waist might have been a distant range of mountains, and her hair a waterfall or runnin’ stream. It wuz some such color, anyway, some of the color of water with the gold light of sunset burnin’ on it, and it hung all round her sweet face in waves and ringlets. She wuz a dretful pretty child. And it seemed as if I couldn’t keep my hands offen her, I wanted to hold her in my arms and pat down them shinin’ tresses so. And it wuzn’t more’n several minutes, anyway, till she wuz nestlin’ up aginst me and I wuz holdin’ her real fondly on my left side while Jack wuz hangin’ round my right side. He didn’t act jealous a mite, either, for he seemed to be jest as fond of little Mary as I wuz. They played together real good. And I held that child in my arms and looked down into the tender, confidin’ little face, a sort of believin’ face, jest the sort I like, and sez to myself:
“What under the sun can her Ma be thinkin’ of to be makin’ up fancy pictures and set so much store by ’em and slight the sweetest and prettiest livin’ picture, all finished off perfect, right before her?” But Celestina did, she jest slighted her, and acted as if she wuzn’t half so much worth as the blank pieces of canvas she handled from day to day, for them she could cover with her own idees and images. It seemed queer to me, queer as a dog.
Anna wuz not in very good sperits, but she went round the house good tempered if ruther sad, helpin’ her Ma all she could, and, in fact, takin’ the brunt of the work on herself, for Arabeller wuz not to be depended on, and Tamer’s various diseases wuz worse and more aggravatin’ than they had been. Cicero, as usual, wuz steeped to the chin in cigarettes and his wild novels of buckaneers and pirates and couldn’t be depended on for help only at meal times, then he come out strong and helped to make way with the food in a masterful way.
Hamen and his brother John wuz real busy about their bizness, and I didn’t see much on ’em, only at the table when they partook of their food hastily and departed. But Tamer seemed to want to make it as pleasant as she could for me, and as Celestine spent so much time outdoors engrossed with her painting, she and I had lots of time to visit together, though, as I always did at Hamen’s, I see lots of things I didn’t fancy, though I hain’t no hand to complain.
I don’t believe in relations findin’ fault with each other, and I am very close mouthed, but of course I can’t help seein’ every time I am there that Tamer is sot and overbearin’ and very onreasonable. Why, she don’t think that Tirzah Ann is the best housekeeper in Jonesville, she jest the same as told me there wuz others jest as good. And she believes that in the big cities there is lawyers that know as much as our Thomas Jefferson.
I pity Tamer from the bottom of my heart, she is failin’ in her mind. But she can’t help it, she has weakened her faculties, I think, broodin’ on her diseases, and then half the time she thinks she is a female Amazon. And how I do pity little Jack! Tamer kep’ the best sort of clothes on him, dressed and fed him jest as well as a child could be, only when she wuz down with the most curiousest of her diseases, or in one of her tempers.