Says he, in a cross, surly way; “I guess I know what I do know.”
I hain’t a yaller hair in the hull of my foretop, but I thought to myself, I’d love to see Josiah Allen’s eyes opened; for I knew as well as I knew my name was Josiah Allen’s wife, that that woman didn’t think Josiah wus so pretty and beautiful. But I didn’t see how I was goin’ to convince him, for he wouldn’t believe me when I told him, she wus a makin’ of it; and I knew she would stick to what she had said, and so there it wus. But I hold firm, and cooked good vittles, and done well by her.
That very afternoon we wus invited to tea, that wus Sylphina Allen’s, Miss Nathen Spooner’s, us and Alzina Ann Allen. Sylphina didn’t use to be the right sort of a girl. She wus a kind of helpless, improvenden thing, and threw herself away on a worthless, drunken feller, that she married for her first husband, though Nathen Spooner wus a dyin’ for her, even then. But when her drunken husband died, and she wus left with that boy of hers, about six years old, she up and jined the Methodist church. I didn’t use to associate with her at all, and Josiah didn’t want me to, though she wus a second cousin on his father’s side. But folks began to make much of her. So I and Josiah did everything for her we could, to help her do well, and be likely. And last fall, she wus married to Nathen Spooner, who hadn’t forgotten her in all this time.
They make a likely couple, and I shouldn’t wonder if they do well. Nathen Spooner is bashful; he looks as if he wanted to sink if any one speaks to him; but Sylphina is proud-spirited and holds him up.
They hain’t got a great deal to do with, and Sylphina bein’ kind o’ afraid of Alzina Ann, sent over and borrowed her mother-in-law’s white-handled knives, and, unbeknown to Alzina Ann, I carried her over some tea-spoons, and other things for her comfort, for if Sylphina means to do better, and try to git along, and be a provider, I want to encourage her all I can, so I carried her the spoons.
Wall, no sooner had we got seated over to Mrs. Spooner’ses, than Alzina Ann begun:
“How much!—how much that beautiful little boy looks like you, Mr. Spooner,” she cried, and she would look first at Nathen, and then at the child, with that enthusiastic look of her’s.
Sylphina’s face wus red as blood, for the child looked as like her first husband as two peas, and she knowed that Nathen almost hated the sight of the boy, and only had him in the house for her sake. And truly, if Nathen Spooner could have sunk down through the floor into the seller, right into the potato bin or pork barrel, it would have been one of the most blessed reliefs to him that he ever enjoyed. I could see that by his countenance.
If she had just said what she had to say, and then left off; but Alzina Ann never’ll do that; she had to enlarge in her idees, and she would ask Sylphina if she didn’t think her boy had the same noble, handsome look to him that Nathen had. And Sylphina would stammer, and look annoyed more’n ever, and get as red in the face as a red woollen shirt. And then Alzina Ann, looking at the child’s pug nose, and then at Nathen’s, which was a sort of Roman one, and the best feetur in his face, as Josiah says, would ask Nathen if folks hadn’t told him before how much his little boy resembled his pa. And Nathen would look this way and that, and kind o’ frown; and it did seem as if we couldn’t keep him out of the seller, to save our lives. And there it wuz.