Wall, my mind wuz made up before I read the last words: “Your loving and sorrowful daughter, Maggie.”
Yes, my mind wuz all made up firm as a rock; and to give Josiah Allen credit, where credit is due, so wuz hisen—his mind wuz made up too.
He blowed his nose hard, and used his bandana on that, and his two eyes, and he said, “Them specks of hisen wuz jest a spilin’ his eyes.”
And I took up my gingham apron and wiped my eyes.
My spectacles sort o’ hurt my eyes, or sunthin’, and my first words wuz, “How soon can we start?”
And Josiah’s first words wuz, “I’ll go and talk it over with Ury. I guess to-morrow or next day.”
Wall, Ury and Philury moved right in and took charge of things and helped us off, and in less than a week’s time we wuz on our way down through the snow-drifts and icickles of the North to the greenness and bloom of the orange-trees and magnolias. Down from the ice-bound rivers of the North to the merry, leapin’ rivulets of Belle Fanchon. Down from the cold peace and calm of our Jonesville farm, down to the beauty and bloom of our boy’s home in the South land, the sorrow and pathos of his love-watched sick-bed, and our little Snow’s white-faced gladness.
We got there jest as the sun set. The country through which we had been a passin’ all day and for some time past wuz a hard and forbidden-lookin’ country—sand, sand, sand, on every side on us, and piled up in sand-heaps, and stretched out white and smooth and dreary-lookin’.
Anon, or mebby oftener, we would go by some places sort o’ sot out with orange-trees, so I spozed, and some other green trees. And once in a while we would see a house set back from the highway with a piazza a runnin’ round it, and mebby two on ’em.
And the children a playin’ round ’em, and the children a wanderin’ along the railroad-track and hangin’ about the depots wuz more than half on ’em black as a coal.