“‘Oh, Sam,’ said she, ‘to think of that!’
“‘To take a seat in my buggy,’ sais I, ‘and come and spend a month with sister Sally and me, at the old location.’
“Poor thing, I pitied her; she had one knee over the other, and, as I said, one hand over her eyes, and there she sot, and the way the upper foot went bobbin’ up and down was like the palsy, only a little quicker. She never said another word, nor sighed, nor groaned, nor anything, only her head hung lower. Well, I felt streaked, Doctor, I tell you. I felt like a man who had stabbed another, and knew he ought to be hanged for it; and I looked at her as such a critter would, if he had to look on, and see his enemy bleed to death. I knew I had done wrong—I had acted spider-like to her—got her into the web—tied her hand and foot, and tantalized her. I am given to brag, I know, Doctor, when I am in the saddle, and up in the stirrups, and leavin’ all others behind; but when a beast is choaked and down in the dirt, no man ever heard me brag I had rode the critter to death.
“No, I did wrong, she was a woman, and I was a man, and if she did act a part, why, I ought to have known the game she had to play, and made allowances for it. I dropt the trump card under the table that time, and though I got the odd trick, she had the honours. It warn’t manly in me, that’s a fact; but confound her, why the plague did she call me ‘Mr,’ and act formal, and give me the bag to hold, when she knew me of old, and minded the cherry-tree, and all that? Still she was a woman, and a defenceless one too, and I did’nt do the pretty. But if she was a woman, doctor, she had more clear grit than most men have. After a while she took her hand off her eyes and rubbed them, and she opened her mouth and yawned so, you could see down to her garters amost.
“‘Dear me!’ said she, trying to smile; but, oh me! how she looked! Her eyes had no more expression than a China-aster, and her face was so deadly pale, it made the rouge she had put on look like the hectic of a dying consumption. Her ugly was out in full bloom, I tell you. ‘Dear cousin Sam,’ said she, ‘I am so fatigued with my labours as presidentess of this institution, that I can hardly keep my peepers open. I think, if I recollect—for I am ashamed to say I was a noddin’—that you proposed (that word lit her eyes up) that I should go with you to visit dear Sally. Oh, Sam!’ said she (how she bit in her temper that hitch, didn’t she?) ‘you see, and you saw it at first, I can’t leave on so short a notice; but if my sweet Sally would come and visit me, how delighted I should be! Sam, I must join my class now. How happy it has made me to see you again after so many years! Kiss me, dear; good bye—God bless you!’ and she yawned again till she nearly dislocated her jaw. ‘Go on and write books, Sam, for no man is better skilled in human natur and spares it less than yourself.’ What a reproachful look she gave me then! ‘Good bye, dear!’
“Well, when I closed the door, and was opening of the outer one, I heard a crash. I paused a moment, for I knew what it was. She had fainted and fell into a conniption fit.
“‘Sam,’ sais I to myself, ‘shall I go back?’
“‘No,’ sais I, ‘if you return there will be a scene; and if you don’t, if she can’t account naterally for it, the devil can’t, that’s all.’
“Doctor, I felt guilty, I tell you. I had taken a great many rises out of folks in my time, but that’s the only one I repent of. Tell you what, Doctor, folks may talk about their southern gentlemen, their New York prince-merchants, and so on, but the clear grit, bottom and game, is New England (Yankee-doodle-dum). Male or female, young or old, I’ll back ’em agin all creation.”
Squire, show this chapter to Lord Tandembery, if you know him; and if you don’t, Uncle Tom Lavender will give you a letter of introduction to him; and then ask him if ever he has suffered half so much as Sam Slick has in the cause of edication.