But Hamen and his brother had got so in the habit of tellin’ Jack every story they could think of, would tell the same things to Mary, and Celestine wuz too took up with her Art to notice. Truly her pictures seemed to be a necessity of life to her, when, as it seemed to me, she had more than enough for comfort, she wuz hurryin’ to produce more. She offered to paint me a calendar, but I mildly rejected the overtoor. I sez to her that the days and weeks brought so many strange things as they went on that I guessed I had jest as soon take ’em plain. I wuz polite to her, but gin her to understand I wuzn’t sufferin’ for it.
But Tamer wuz enthusiastick about ’em, and Celestine painted her one with every week, showin’ a new animal kinder sprawlin’ round it, amongst some strange flowers and things, I couldn’t have stood it myself to had it round, but Tamer liked it, and Celestine said she would paint one for the hull family. And, bein’ so wrought up ornamentin’ the days of the week on paper, she entirely forgot that the days and years of God held any duty for her, forgot the sweet little soul he had gin to her charge for weal or woe, forgot to speak a word to her from mornin’ till night. Why, it wuz worse than the children mentioned in Scripter when they asked for bread and got a stun, poor little Mary asked for the bread of love and got nothin’ but a piece of paper, though there hain’t a stun on the face of the earth, from Gibrialtar down to a slate stun, that I wouldn’t ruther had gin to me than to have owned one of them picters and had to look at it. But she kep’ at ’em.
Well, it wuz the third day we had been there, and it wuz a beautiful evenin’. I wuz settin’ in my winder overlookin’ the lake, and, seein’ how bright the stars looked reflected in the smooth water and how the crescent moon lay down there like a big golden boat all full and flashin’ with light, and the glowin’ path that led to it shone so it looked like one of them streets of gold we read about in the New Jerusalem, it seemed so solid and bright that it fairly tempted one to walk out on it and set sail in that great dazzlin’ boat for the golden shores and fairy pinnacles of that city that lay becalmed in the west.
And as I sot there I heard, with a small part of my brain, the other part bein’ occupied with my rapt musin’s, little Mary’s voice talkin’ down under the winder on the stoop with her Uncle Hamen, she had always lived inland and had never seen such a glorious show on the water, the nights she had stayed there bein’ cloudy or stormy, I hearn her say in her earnest way, “What is that light, Uncle Hamen, way off there on the water? It looks like a great shinin’ boat.”
And then I hearn, as one who did not hear, Hamen say, “It is a boat, Mary.”
“Well, what are the little bright lights all round it? Are they little playhouses for children? They look so small and bright, and there is such a pretty path to ’em over the water.”
And then I hearn Hamen go on, a little I heard there with my ears onbeknown to me and a little I hearn afterwards from the lips of a too late remorse, but ’tennyrate Hamen told her they wuz little playhouses where good little boys and girls went to play, and asked if she didn’t want to go and play in one of ’em.
And she told him in her believin’, trustin’ way that she guessed she would go out and live in one of them with Jack.
And Hamen said it would be a good idee, they could take some dishes and things and keep house there, and told her to talk to Jack about it. And she pattered off to find Jack, and Hamen told his brother about it, and they both tittered and laughed. But that I did hear afterwards, I am truthful and will not lie even in moments of excitement and tragedy, I did not hear the titters.