“Oh, her sweet, tender heart seemed to be set upon him from the first, and I couldn’t bear to break up those sweet dreams.”
I begun to see where the land lay; I looked at Albina Ann sadly. There she sot, a full grown woman, with a waist like a pipe stail and shues with heels half a finger high, and tellin’ she dassent warn her girl from the evil to come.
But I didn’t say anything to add to her agitation, I simply remarked, “Well, I never see the time that I wouldn’t pull Tirzah Ann out of the fire, if I see her blindly blunderin’ into it, or haul back Thomas J. from precipices. But we hain’t all made alike, and our faces all on ’em are but the faces of clay.”
I never meant to give her a cut no more than nothin’ in the world, I wuz talkin’ Bible and feelin’ riz up.
But I see her lift her lace handkerchief in her tight gloved hand, and then I see, her veil bein’ up, that her color wuzn’t nateral and the hull complexion made up. But, good land! I wuzn’t goin’ to try to make over Albina Ann Peak, she’d been made too long—she wuz about my age—but I told her she could send Dora down and I’d do the best I could for her, and she kissed me good-by through her veil (a white one with big, black dots). I thought no wonder Albina Ann’s eyes has gin out, she wuz most as blind as a checkud adder. Why, if you’ll believe it, she sot most all day with that veil over her face. I spoze she thought it wuz becomin’ to her, but I should jest as soon wore blinders.
In about ten days Dora come, Josiah went after her with the democrat and brought her and three trunks and some satchels. When I see them trunks I felt dubersome, and mebby looked so, for thinkses I, “Is it a life job I’ve tackled?” but in a minute I thought, “Why, it’s in her bringin’ up; Albina Ann wuz always changin’ her dress, and ornamentin’ herself, and actin’.” So I met her with cheerfulness and kissed her on both cheeks, while Josiah, a-groanin’, as I could hear, tackled the trunks. I see she wuz naterally a pretty girl, but looked wan and wapeish, and I didn’t wonder a mite at it when I took close note of the way she wuz dressed.
I had a warm supper ready, for I thought she would be tired and hungry. But she couldn’t eat a mite, she said, not a mou’ful, but I see she had a big empty candy box in her hand, and she owned up that she’d eat it all on her journey. And bime-by she told me she had had some pickled stuff that she had brung for an appetite, and they wuz all eat up.
Well, after she’d took her things off I see she wuz a sight to behold. If her waist wuzn’t a cur’os’ty then I never see one. Why, if I do say it, and I’m a Methodist in good standin’, it wuzn’t much bigger than a quill—a goose quill; of course it wuz some bigger, but it is within bounds to use it for a metafor. The heels of her little pinted shoes wuz more’n two and a half inches high and sot right in the palm of her foot, right on them nerves that cause headache and blindness, and fits and things, and I knew by the looks of them pinted toes that no human toes could possibly git into ’em without bein’ all twisted up just like a heathen Chinee’s.
Well, I declare I felt to weep almost when I looked at her. She wuz so weak that I had to take her right up to her room and lay her out on the bed. And I hefted her dress and skirts after I’d helped her off with ’em, and of all the heft you ever see, why, it wuz astonishin’. Her dress wuz tailor-made, and embroidered all over with braid, and fitted her like a glove, but heavy as lead almost, and jest a-draggin’ round her waist—not a shoulder strap, nor a button or string or anything that she could divide the burden with; no, them heavy skirts all a-hangin’ like millstuns round the little, spindlin’ waist, and that so tight bound down by a hard bone-and-steel cosset that it looked like a prisoner of the deepest dye incarcerated in the closest confinement. I see when she lay down, tired almost to death and a-gaspin’, that she didn’t remove her cosset; no, there it wuz, a-holdin’ her in its deathly grip right there on the bed, and I sez, “Don’t you take off your cosset when you lay down?”