Says I, firm as a rock, “My mind hain’t changed, Josiah Allen, so much as the width of a horse-hair.”
Says he, “I always said, and knew, that wimmin hadn’t got no heads. But it is aggravatin’, it is awful aggravatin’, when enybody has made such a bargain as I have, to not have enybody’s wife appreciate it. And I should think it wus about time to have supper, if you are goin’ have any to-night.”
I calmly rose, and put on the tea-kettle, and never disputed a word with him about whether I had a head, or not. Good Lord: I knew I had one, and what was the use of arguin’ about it? I never said a word, but I kept a-thinkin’ I had heard of the Bamberses before. It had come right straight to me: Miss Ebenezer Scwelz, she that was Nably Spink’s nephew’s wife’s stepmother, Miss Bumper, lived neighbors to ’em, and she had told me, Nably had, that them Bamberses wus shiftless creeters.
But the bargain wus all made, and there wuzn’t no use in saying anything, and I knew if I should tell Josiah what I had heard, he’d only go to arguin’ agin that I hadn’t no head. So I didn’t say nothin’, and the very next day they moved in. They had been stayin’ a spell to her folks’es, a little way beyond Janesville. They said the house they had been livin’ in at Loon Town was so uncomfortable, they couldn’t stay in it a day longer. But we heard afterward, Miss Scwelz heard right from Miss Bumpers’es own lips, that they wus smoked out, the man that owned the house had to smoke ’em out to get rid of ’em.
Wall, as I said, they come—Mr. Bamber and his wife, and his wife’s sister (she wus Irish), and the children. And, oh! How neat Josiah Allen did feel. He wus over there before they had hardly got sot down, and offered to do anything under the sun for ’em and offered ’em everything we had in the house. I, myself, kep’ cool and cullected together. Though I treated ’em in a liberal way, and in the course of two or three days, I made ’em a friendly call, and acted well toward ’em.
But instead of runnin’ over there the next day, and two or three times a day, I made a practice of stayin’ to home considerable; and Josiah took me to do for it. But I told him that “I treated them jist exactly as I wanted them to treat me.” Says I, “a megum course is the best course to pursue in nearly every course of life, neighborin’ especially,” says I. “I begin as I can hold out. I lay out to be kind and friendly to ’em, but I don’t intend to make it my home with ’em, nor do I want them to make it their home with me.” Says I, “once in two or three days is enough, and enough, Josiah Allen, is as good as a feast.”
“Wall,” says he, “if I ever enjoyed anything in this world, I enjoy neighberin’ with them folks,” says he. “They think the world of me. It beats all how they wership me. The childern talk to me so they don’t want me out of their sight hardly a minute. Bamber and his wife says they think it is in my looks. You know I am pretty-lookin’, Samantha. They say the baby will cry after me so quick. It beats all, what friends we have got to be, I and the Bamberses, and it is aggravatin’, Samantha, to think you don’t seem to feel toward ’em that strong friendship that I feel.”
Says I, “Friendship, Josiah Allen, is a great word.” Says I, “True friendship is the most beautiful thing on earth; it is love without passion, tenderness without alloy. And,” says I, soarin’ up into the realm of allegory, where, on the feathery wings of pure eloquence, I fly frequent, “Intimacy hain’t friendship.” Says I, “Two men may sleep together, year after year, on the same feather bed, and wake up in the mornin’, and shake hands with each other, perfect strangers, made so unbeknown to them. And feather beds, nor pillers, nor nothin’ can’t bring ’em no nigher to each other. And they can keep it up from year to year, and lock arms and prominade together through the day, and not be no nigher to each other. They can keep their bodies side by side, but their souls, who can tackle ’em together, unless nature tackled ’em, unbeknown to them? Nobody.
“And then agin two persons may meet, comin’ from each side of the world; and they will look right through each other’s eyes, down into their souls, and see each other’s image there; born so, born friends, entirely unbeknown to them. Thousands of miles apart, and all the insperations of heaven and earth; all the influence of life, education, joy and sorrow, has been fitting them for each other (unbeknown to them); twin souls, and they not knowin’ of it.”
“Speakin’ of twin——” says Josiah.