“Why who are you a-talkin’ of, Sam?”
“Why, Mrs. Happy Lot, the wife of the Honourable Cranbery Lot, of Umbagog, to be sure. Who did you think I was a-talkin’ of?”
“Well, I thought you was a-talkin’ of—of—ahem—of subjects too serious to be talked of in that manner; but I did you wrong, Sam; I did you injustice. Give me your hand, my boy. It’s better for me to mistake and apologize, than for you to sin and repent. I don’t think I ever heard of Mr. Lot, of Umbagog, or of his wife either. Sit down here, and tell me the story, for ‘with thee conversing, I forget all time.’”
“Well, Minister,” said Mr. Slick, “I’ll tell you the ins and outs of it; and a droll story it is too. Miss Lot was the darter of Enoch Mosher, the rich miser of Goshen; as beautiful a little critter too, as ever slept in shoe-leather. She looked for all the world like one of the Paris fashion prints, for she was a parfect pictur’, that’s a fact. Her complexion was made of white and red roses, mixed so beautiful, you couldn’t tell where the white eended, or the red begun, natur’ had used the blendin’ brush so delicate. Her eyes were screw augurs, I tell you; they bored right into your heart, and kinder agitated you, and made your breath come and go, and your pulse flutter. I never felt nothin’ like ‘em. When lit up, they sparkled like lamp reflectors; and at other tunes, they was as soft, and mild, and clear as dew-drops that hang on the bushes at sun-rise. When she loved, she loved; and when she hated, she hated about the wickedest you ever see. Her lips were like heart cherries of the carnation kind; so plump, and fall, and hard, you felt as if you could fall to and eat ‘em right up. Her voice was like a grand piany, all sorts o’ power in it; canary-birds’ notes at one eend, and thunder at t’other, accordin’ to the humour she was in, for she was a’most a grand bit of stuff was Happy, she’d put an edge on a knife a’most. She was a rael steel. Her figur’ was as light as a fairy’s, and her waist was so taper and tiny, it seemed jist made for puttin’ an arm round in walkin’. She was as active and springy on her feet as a catamount, and near about as touch me-not a sort of customer too. She actilly did seem as if she was made out of steel springs and chicken-hawk. If old Cran, was to slip off the handle, I think I should make up to her, for she is ‘a salt,’ that’s a fact, a most a heavenly splice.
“Well, the Honourable Cranbery Lot put in for her, won her, and married her. A good speculation it turned out too, for he got the matter of one hundred thousand of dollars by her, if he got a cent. As soon as they were fairly welded, off they sot to take the tour of Europe, and they larfed and cried, and kissed and quarrelled, and fit and made up all over the Continent, for her temper was as onsartain as the climate here—rain one minit and sun the next; but more rain nor sun.
“He was a fool, was Cranbery. He didn’t know how to manage her. His bridle hand warn’t good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull critter with no action, don’t mate well in harness, that’s a fact.
“After goin’ every where, and every where else amost, where should they get to but the Alps. One arternoon, a sincerely cold one it was too, and the weather, violent slippy, dark overtook them before they reached the top of one of the highest and steepest of them mountains, and they had to spend the night at a poor squatter’s shanty.
“Well, next mornin’, jist at day-break, and sun-rise on them everlastin’ hills is tall sun-rise, and no mistake, p’rhaps nothin was ever seen so fine except the first one, since creation. It takes the rag off quite. Well, she was an enterprisin’ little toad, was Miss Lot too, afeered of nothin’ a’most; so nothin’ would sarve her but she must out and have a scramb up to the tip-topest part of the peak afore breakfast.
“Well, the squatter there, who was a kind o’ guide, did what he could to dispersuade her, but all to no purpose; go she would, and a headstrong woman and a runaway hoss are jist two things it’s out of all reason to try to stop; The only way is to urge ‘em on, and then, bein’ contrary by natur’, they stop of themselves.
“‘Well,’ sais the guide, ‘if you will go, marm, do take this pike staff, marm,’ sais he; (a sort of walkin’-stick with a spike to the eend of it), ‘for you can’t get either up or down them slopes without it, it is so almighty slippy there.’ So she took the staff, and off she sot and climbed and climbed ever so far, till she didn’t look no bigger than a snowbird.