Well, as I told Tamer Ann, I couldn’t have such a girl in my house overnight, bold, boastin’, insolent, lyin’, nasty inside and outside, leerin’, brazen, and altogether worthless. But Tamer said she got her real cheap, and she thought by havin’ her instead of a better girl she could save money enough to git a new sealskin cloak and a bracelet out of the household money, so she hired her for a song almost.
“Not one of her songs, I hope,” sez I.
“No,” Tamer said, she said it in a parable way. Well, as nigh as I could make out from what I see myself and from what I hearn, Cicero thought it would be kinder manly and like one of his Bandit Heroes to fall in love with her, and pay her attentions, not in the good open hullsome way of comrades and playmates, in her few hours of leisure, but in the dime novel, pirate way, brigand and burglar, romantick, sentimental way.
There wuz a cave in the woods back of Hamenses, and he used to retire there quite a good deal. And he tried time and agin to run away with her. She wuzn’t likely, so Tamer said, and she knew she would have to watch her when she hired her, but she said she thought she could, with her family’s help. She seemed to specially count on Cicero’s help from her talk to me, but ’tennyrate she owned up that it made her sights of trouble.
And I sez to her in the cause of duty, “Tamer Ann, why did you hire a girl that you thought wuzn’t likely? Why did you bring such a girl into the house with your children? I wuz never much of a hand to wave fire brands round in piles of tow and flax, or light parlor matches in powder magazines. But, howsumever,” sez I, “everybody hain’t alike, and I spoze mebby you thought you would git along.”
“Yes,” sez she, “for I knew we could watch her through the day, and then we always nail her up at night.”
“Nail her up!” sez I, agast at the idee, “what do you mean?”
Sez she, “There hain’t no lock to her door, but we have got an old door that we set aginst hern and nail it up every night.”
“Don’t you feel queer while you are doin’ it?” sez I, for truly it made me feel queer as a dog jest hearin’ it.
“Yes,” sez she, “I do feel queer, and specially when we drag her in by moonlight, for she has often tried to run away with Cicero, but we would some on us hear her, and then we would have to go out and drag her back and nail her up.”