Sylphina sithed, and went to pourin’ out the tea. And Nathen brightened up and said, “if things turned out with him as he hoped they would that fall, he calculated to vote for old Peter Cooper.”
I could see from his mean, that Josiah was gettin’ kinder sick of Alzina Ann, and (though I hain’t got a jealous hair in hull of my back hair and foretop) I didn’t care a mite if he wuz. But, truly, werse wus to come.
After supper, Josiah and me wus a-settin’ in the spare-room, close to the winder, a-lookin’ through Sylphina’s album; when we heered Alzina Ann and Sylphina, out under the winder, a-lookin’ at Sylphina’s peary bed, and Alzina Ann was a talkin’, and says she:
“How pleasant it is here, to your house, Sylphina, perfectly beautiful! Seein’ we are both such friends to her, I feel free to tell you what a awful state I find Josiah Allen’s wife’s house in. Not a mite of a carpet in her settin’-room floor, and nothin’ gives a room such a awful look as that. She said it wus up to mend, but, between you and me, I don’t believe a word of it. I believe it wus up for some other purpose. And the curtains wus down in my room, and I had to sleep all the first night in that condition. I might jest as well have sat up, it looked so. And when she got ’em up the next mornin’, they wusn’t nothin’ but plain white muslin. I should think she could afford somethin’ a little more decent than that for her spare-room. And she hadn’t a mite of fruit cake in the house, only two kinds of common-lookin’ cake. She said Josiah forgot to give her my letter, and she didn’t get word I wus comin’ till the day I got there, but between you and me, I never believed that for a minute. I believe they got up that story between ’em, to excuse it off, things lookin’ so. If I wuzn’t such a friend of hern, and didn’t think such a sight of her, I wouldn’t mention it for the world. But I think everything of her, and everybody knows I do, so I feel free to talk about her. How humbly she has growed! Don’t you think so? And her mind seems to be a kind o’ runnin’ down. For how, under the sun, she can think so much of that simple old husband of hern, is a mystery to me, unless she is growin’ foolish. He wus always a poor, insignificent lookin’ creeter; but now, he is the humblest and meekest lookin’ creeter, I ever seen in human shape. And he looks as old as grandfather Richerson, every mite as old, and he is most 90. And he is vain as a peahen.”
I jest glanced round at Josiah, and then, intentively, looked away again. His countenance wus perfectly awful. Truly, the higher we are up the worse it hurts us to fall down. Bein’ lifted up on such a height of vanity and vain glory, and fallin’ down from it so sudden, it most broke his neck, (speakin’ in a poetical and figurative way.) I, myself, havin’ had doubts of her all along, didn’t feel nigh so worked up and curious; it mere sort o’ madded me, it kind o’ operated in that way on me. And so when she begun agin, to run Josiah and me down to the very lowest noch, called us all to naught, made out we wuzn’t hardly fit to live, and wus most fools. And then says agin:
“I wouldn’t say a word againt ’em for the world, if I wusn’t such a friend to ’em——”
Then I rose right up, and stood in the open winder, and it came up in front of me, some like a pulpit, and I s’pose my mean looked considerable like a preacher’s when they get carried away with the subject, and almost by the side of themselves.
Alzina Ann quitted the minute she sot her eyes on me, as much or more than any minister ever made a congregation quail, and says she, in trembling tones:
“You know I do think everything in the world of you. You know I shouldn’t have said a word againt you, if I wusn’t such a warm friend of yourn.”