You see the way on’t is, I sot out in married life determined to do as well or better by the relations on his side than I did by them on my own side. I wuz bound to do well by the hull on ’em, jest bound to.
But I made up my mind like iron that I would stand more, take more sass, be more obleegin’, and suffer and be calm more from hisen than from mine, and I would do awful, awful well by both sides.
And it wuz these beliefs carried out and spread out into practice that caused my agonies and my sufferin’s that I went through for weeks.
The way on’t wuz, I had a letter from the city from my great-aunt Melinda Lyons, a tellin’ me that her oldest girl, Melinda Ann (a old maiden), wuz all run down with nervous prostration, nervous fits and things, and she asked me if I would be willin’ to have her come down into the country and stay a few weeks with me.
Wall, Aunt Melinda had done a good many good turns by me when I wuz a girl, and then I set quite a good deal of store by Melinda Ann, she and I wuz jest about of a age, and I talked it over with Josiah, and we give our consents and writ the letter, and the next week Melinda Ann come on, bag and baggage. A leather trunk and a bag for baggage.
Wall, we found Melinda Ann wuz very good dispositioned and a Christian, but hard to get along with.
MELINDA HAS A FIT.