“How did it end?”
“It hain’t ended,” sez she, “it only took place a month ago and she has got her grit up and won’t pay; and no knowin’ how it will end; she lays there amoulderin’.”
I don’t believe Cassanda wuz mouldy, but that is Serepta’s way of talkin’, very flowery.
“Well,” sez I, “do you think the weather is goin’ to moderate?”
I truly felt that I dassent speak to her about any human bein’ under the sun, not knowin’ what turn she would give to the talk, bein’ so embittered. But I felt that the weather wuz safe, and cotton stockin’s, and hens, and factory cloth, and I kep’ her down on them for more’n two hours.
But good land! I can’t blame her for bein’ embittered agin men and the laws they’ve made, for it seems as if I never see a human creeter so afflicted as Serepta Pester has been all her life.
Why, her sufferin’s date back before she wuz born, and that’s goin’ pretty fur back. Her father and mother had some difficulty and he wuz took down with billerous colick, voylent four weeks before Serepta wuz born. And some think it wuz the hardness between ’em and some think it wuz the gripin’ of the colick when he made his will, anyway he willed Serepta away, boy or girl whichever it wuz, to his brother up on the Canada line.
So when Serepta wuz born (and born a girl ontirely onbeknown to her) she wuz took right away from her mother and gin to this brother. Her mother couldn’t help herself, he had the law on his side. But it killed her. She drooped away and died before the baby wuz a year old. She wuz a affectionate, tenderhearted woman and her husband wuz overbearin’ and stern always.
But it wuz this last move of hisen that killed her, for it is pretty tough on a mother to have her baby, a part of her own life, took right out of her own arms and gin to a stranger. For this uncle of hern wuz a entire stranger to Serepta, and almost like a stranger to her father, for he hadn’t seen him since he wuz a boy, but knew he hadn’t any children and spozed that he wuz rich and respectable. But the truth wuz he had been runnin’ down every way, had lost his property and his character, wuz dissipated and mean. But the will wuz made and the law stood. Men are ashamed now to think that the law wuz ever in voge, but it wuz, and is now in some of the states, and the poor young mother couldn’t help herself. It has always been the boast of our American law that it takes care of wimmen. It took care of her. It held her in its strong protectin’ grasp so tight that the only way she could slip out of it wuz to drop into the grave, which she did in a few months. Then it leggo.
But it kep’ holt of Serepta, it bound her tight to her uncle while he run through with what property she had, while he sunk lower and lower until at last he needed the very necessaries of life and then he bound her out to work to a woman who kep’ a drinkin’ den and the lowest hant of vice.