Uncle Submit Allen and Aunt Patience and their three daughters and their children, and Tamer’s brother’s folks and her Uncle Preserved, and Aunt Priscilla and Aunt Nancy John and Aunt Nancy Joe, widders of the old twins, John and Joseph Allen, and Uncle Ichabod Allen, poor creeter! he had lost his wife, but he kep’ his old maid girl to keep house for him; yes, Huldy wuz there, too, takin’ first rate care of her Pa; Cousin Joel and his wife and Marii, she is a kind of a widder, that is, her husband, Jotham Allen, left her a year ago this comin’ fall, run away with Elam Snyderses widder and a three-year-old colt that belonged to Marii, and, as I told her, I should mourn some for the colt, but should consider it wuz a colt well lost to git red of Jotham. A poor, whifflin’ creeter, drinkin’ and behavin’, and had ever sence they wuz married. Marii is a good deal better off without him, and she begins to think so, too; she is a tailoress and gits good wages and don’t have to have her heart and mind on a strain all the time.
Why, sometimes I think it is easier to settle down and be real onhappy than it is to be between and betwixt, and not know what roll you will be called to play the next minute. If you know you are onhappy you can set down and mourn and give your hull time to it as it were, and not strain your mind, not knowin’ what you are goin’ to do next.
But to resoom. These relations I have named all pressed forwards in the stoop to greet me; after Tamer and Anna and Jack, bless him! had met us with a hearty welcome, Hamen, havin’ gin me a cordial greetin’, had gone on to the horse barn with the mair and my pardner. I see Celestine settin’ at the other end of the stoop with her easel all up a’ready, and she paintin’ away at some landscape or ruther, not mindin’ seemin’ly the waves of relationship surgin’ round her on every side. But, as I drawed near, she did take her brush in her other hand and shake hands with me, but her hand wuz real limpsy, she didn’t realize me much of any, her mind wuzn’t in our world at all as I could see.
She wuz paintin’ the cloud effects on the water, she said, and her canvas did look all kinder swashy and blue with some storks storkin’ along in front, to give the picture character, she said, and she said she never see the cloud effects more strikin’ than they wuz that mornin’.
And I sez, “Yes, like as not.” And I looked off dreamily for a number of minutes. The lake lay like a long, bright mirror, and all the tiny white and pink clouds that wuz floatin’ on the clear, blue sky above wuz reflected on the face of the water, the willers that grew along the banks on one side wuz reproduced and living agin down in that strange underworld, and the big oak tree that sort o’ bent over the water with a bluebird settin’ out on one branch and singin’ sweet and clear.
There they wuz livin’ agin, bluebird and all, it wuz a fair seen, a fair seen, and I didn’t wonder that Celestine admired it. But with all my admiration, and, though I wuz borne off a considerable ways by my almost boundless delight in the seen, yet some practical common sense remained with me. When anybody is in danger of bein’ carried away by their emotions they ort to tie a string to themselves as it were to bring themselves back to this life as long as they have got to stay in it. And so I give a little hitch to this string and found myself back in this world agin, and I sez, “Where is little Mary!”
“Oh,” sez Celestine, in a rapt way, “how sweetly the bird song blends in with the tender feeling of the landscape, and yet a stork is a more striking adjunct,” sez she.
But I sez agin, “Where is little Mary?”
And after repeating the question for the third time, she sez, looking round her in a vague way, “Oh, I guess she is playing somewhere with some of the children.” And I left her, she not sensin’ it at all, and went down the steps towards the lake where I heard the sound of children’s voices. I found little Mary settin’ on a stun and lookin’ fur off onto the water, she had been throwing pebbles into the clear depths, but sot still now, seemin’ly wropped up in her thoughts.
She seemed dretful glad to see me, and I her visey versey, sweet little creeter! Jack joined us pretty soon, and we sot there for some time, and I told ’em quite a number of stories, and I held Mary in one arm and Jack in the other, and we enjoyed ourselves first rate. But the voices of Duty and Tamer called me back to the house and the assembled guests. Von Crank wuz there, for Tamer would have it so, and he paid Anna all the attention he possibly could, and she repulsed it all she could, so it made quite queer times and quite romantic. But Anna told me out on the west piazza, when we happened to be there alone, that since Cicero had been sent to the penitentiary her Ma had not acted quite so headstrong and stern about Von Crank, “But yet,” sez she, “I see her mind is still set on our union, and what shall I do, Aunt Samantha? She has been through so much trouble with Cicero. I am afraid any other blow would be the means of killing her.” And she sez agin, as she had said before, “I could never be happy, never, if I wuz the means of breaking her heart, and so I don’t know what to do.”