“Wuzn’t it a sight of work?” sez I pityin’ly.
“Yes,” sez she, it wuz a sight of work, for she wuz so mean that she would let her feet drag, and they would have to pull her back by main force.
Sez I, “Tamer Ann, it seems to me that it would be easier to wash the dishes and sweep than to do this, and that is about all Arabeller duz anyway.”
Tamer said it wuz a good deal more work, but it wuz genteel to employ a servant, it give a sort of a air to a house to have a servant in it.
And I sez, “Yes, it duz give considerable air, if you have to be rushin’ round at any time of night to drag her in and nail her up.”
“Yes,” sez Tamer, “of course my family help me, but that has made me sights of worriment agin, for I most know that Cicero has kep’ up a clandestine correspondence with her, and would slip notes into her hand while he wuz helpin’ me drag her back. I have ketched him,” sez she, “leavin’ the nails loose so she could break out while he wuz helpin’ me nail her up.”
“Tamer,” sez I, real earnest, “do hear to me; do git rid of Arabeller, or you will sup sorrer from it in the end.” And I see that all that wuz keepin’ her back from it wuz the idee of style and gentility.
I didn’t dread her influence so much over Anna, for I felt that her nater wuz so healthy and wholesome and well grounded in good actions that it would reject the pizen atmosphere. And little Jack, I hoped and prayed none of her acts would even be known to him by name. But I worried more than considerable over the hull matter, and so did the neighbors, I could see. Why, one night while I wuz there a neighborin’ woman, Miss Presley, walked right into Tamer’s kitchen without knockin’, with an old shawl over her head and a lantern in both hands. Cicero had gone into her paster and took both her horses and gone off somewhere with ’em, he and Arabeller. She wuz a old maid and said she had always been imposed upon, but she demanded help to hunt her horses.
So Tamer and Hamen had to git up and pacify Miss Presley and help hunt, for sure enough when they went to Cicero’s room he wuzn’t there, and when they went to Arabeller’s room there the nails wuz pulled out and she wuz let loose, and we found out afterwards they had both run away to git married. But Hamen started off horseback, he and the hired man, and they catched them jest before they reached the minister’s house down on Stuny Creek.