“I hain’t called you a camel. I only meant that you was hefty, and camels wus hefty. And it would take a Simon or two to lift you ’round, either on you.”
“Wall,” says I, in frigid tones, “what I want to know is, are you a-goin’ to shet that door?”
“Yes, I be, jist as quick as I can change my clothes. I don’t want to fodder in these new briches.”
I rose with dignity, or as much dignity as I could lay holt of half bent, tryin’ to keep ten or twelve quarts of carpet rags from spillin’ over the floor—and went and shet the door myself, which I might have known enough to done first place and saved time and breath. For shettin’ of in the doors is truly a accomplishment that Josiah Allen never will master. I have tuched him up in lots of things, sense we wus married, but in that branch of education he has been too much for me; I about gin up.
In the course of ten or fifteen moments, Josiah came out of the bed-room, lookin’ as peaceful and pleasant as you may please, with his hands in his pantaloons pockets searchin’ their remote depths, and says he, in a off-hand, careless way:
“I’ll be hanged, if there hain’t a letter for you, Samantha.”
“How many weeks have you carried it ’round, Josiah Allen?” says I. “It would scare me if you should give me a letter before you had carried it ’round in your pockets a month or so.”
“Oh! I guess I only got this two or three days ago. I meant to handed it to you the first thing when I got home. But I hain’t had on these old breeches sense that day I went to mill.”
“Three weeks ago, to-day,” says I, in almost frosty axents, as I opened my letter.