“If you are going to the capital, you had better study Dante.”
Says I, “Danty who?”
And he says, “Just plain Dante.” Says he, “You had better study his inscription on the door of the infern”—
Says I, “Cease instantly. You are on the very pint of swearin';” and I don't know now what he meant, and don't much care. Thomas J. is full of queer remarks, anyway. But deep. He had a sick spell a few weeks ago; and I went to see him the first thing in the mornin', after I heard of it. He had overworked, the doctor said, and his heart wuz a little weak. He looked real white; and I took holt of his hand, and says I,—
“Thomas J., I am worried about you: your pulse don't beat hardly any.”
“No,” says he. And he laughed with his eyes and his lips too. “I am glad I am not a newspaper this morning, mother.”
And I says, “Why?”
And he says, “If I were a morning paper, mother, I shouldn't be a success, my circulation is so weak.”
A jokin' right there, when he couldn't lift his head. But he got over it: he always did have them sort of sick spells, from a little child.
But a manlier, good-hearteder, level-headeder boy never lived than Thomas Jefferson Allen. He is just right, and always wuz. And though I wouldn't have it get out for the world, I can't help seein' it, that he goes fur ahead of Tirzah Ann in intellect, and nobleness of nater; and though I love 'em both devotedly, I do, and I can't help it, like him jest a little mite the best. But this I wouldn't have get out for a thousand dollars. I tell it in strict confidence, and s'pose it will be kep' as such. Mebby I hadn't ort to tell it at all. Mebby it hain't quite orthodox in me to feel so. But it is truthful, anyway. And sometimes I get to kinder wobblin' round inside of my mind, and a wonderin' which is the best,—to be orthodox, or truthful,—and I sort o' settle down to thinkin' I will tell the truth anyway.