Says she, “If I had my way, I never would have a curtain up to a window. The sky always looks so pure and innocent somehow. And cookin’,” says she, with a look of complete disgust on her face. “Why, I fairly despise cookin’; what’s the use of it?” says she, with a sweet smile.
“Why,” says I, reesonably, “if it wasn’t for cookin’ vittles and eatin’ ’em, guess we shouldn’t stand it a great while, none on us.”
I didn’t really like the way she went on. Never, never, through my hull life, was I praised up by anybody as I wus by her, durin’ the three days that she stayed with us. And one mornin’, when she had been goin’ on dretfully, that way, I took Josiah out one side, and told him; “I couldn’t bear to hear her go on so, and I believed there was sunthin’ wrong about it.”
“Oh, no,” says he. “She means every word she says,” says he. “She is one of the loveliest creeters this earth affords. She is most a angel. Oh!” says he, dreamily, “what a sound mind she has got.”
Says I, “I heard her tellin’ you this mornin’, that you wus one of the handsomest men she ever laid eyes on, and didn’t look a day over twenty-one.”
“Well,” says he, with the doggy firmness of his sect. “She thinks so,” and says he, in firm axents, “I am a good lookin’ feller, Samantha. A crackin’ good-lookin’ chap, but I never could make you own up to it.”
I didn’t say nothin’, but my grey eye wandered up, and lighted on his bald head. It rested there searchinly, and very coldly for a moment or two, and then says I, sternly; “Bald heads and beauty don’t go together worth a cent. But you wus always vain, Josiah Allen.”
Says he, “What if I wus?” and says he, “She thinks different from what you do about my looks. She has got a keen eye on her head for beauty. She is very smart, very. And what she says, she means.”
“Wall,” says I, “I am glad you are so happy in your mind. But, mark my words, you won’t always feel so neat about it, Josiah Allen, as you do now.”