“Monstrous ’finement now-a-days—old people don’t know nothin’ ’bout perliteness,” said old Miss Stallins, jest gwine to sleep with her nittin’ in her hand.
“Now you hear that, Miss Carline,” ses I. “She ses she’ll keep it all her life.”
“Yes, I will,” ses Miss Mary; “but what is it?”
“Never mind,” ses I, “you hang up a bag big enuff to hold it and you’ll find out what it is, when you see it in the mornin’.”
Miss Carline winked at Miss Kesiah, and then whispered to her; then they both laughed and looked at me as mischievous as they could. They spicioned something.
“You’ll be sure to give it to me now, if I hang up a bag,” ses Miss Mary.
“And promise to keep it,” ses I.
“Well, I will, cause I know that you wouldn’t give me nothin’ that wasn’t worth keepin’.”
They all agreed they would hang up a bag for me to put Miss Mary’s Crismus present in, in the back porch, and ’bout nine o’clock I told ’em good evenin’ and went home.
I sot up till midnight, and when they was all gone to bed, I went softly into the back gate, and went up to the porch, and thar, shore enuff, was a grate big meal-bag hangin’ to the jice. It was monstrous unhandy to git to it, but I was ’tarmined not to back out. So I sot some chairs on top of a bench and got hold of the rope and let myself down into the bag; but jest as I was gittin’ in, the bag swung agin the chairs, and down they went with a terrible racket. But nobody didn’t wake up but old Miss Stallinses grate big cur dog, and here he cum rippin’ and tarin’ through the yard like rath, and round and round he went tryin’ to find what was the matter. I sot down in the bag and didn’t breathe louder nor a kitten, for fear he’d find me out, and after a while he quit barkin’. The wind begun to blow ’bominable cold, and the old bag kep turnin’ round and swingin’ so, it made me sea-sick as the mischief. I was ’fraid to move for fear the rope would brake and let me fall, and thar I sot with my teeth ratlin’ like I had a ager. It seemed like it would never come daylight, and I do b’lieve if I didn’t love Miss Mary so powerful I would froze to deth; for my hart was the only spot that felt warm, and it didn’t beat more’n two licks a minit, only when I thought how she would be sprised in the mornin’, and then it went in a canter. Bimeby the cussed old dog come up on the porch and begun to smell about the bag, and then he barked like he thought he’d treed something.