Samantha at Saratoga [1]
Jacob now, settin' right by that well of his'n for pretty nigh two hundred years. How much store he must have set by it during the last hundred years of 'em! How attached he must have been to it! Good land! Where is there a well that one of our rich old American patriarks will set down by for two years, leavin' off the orts. There haint none, there haint no such a well. Our patriarks haint fond of well water, anyway. And old Miss Abraham now, and Miss Isaac -- what stay to home wimmen they wuz, and equinomical! What a good contented creeter Sarah Abraham wuz. How settled down, and stiddy, stayin' right to home for hundreds of years. Not gettin' rampent for a wider spear, not a coaxin' old Mr. Abraham nights to take her to summer resorts, and winter hants of fashion. No, old Mr. Abraham went to bed, and went to sleep for all of her. And when they did once in a hundred years, or so, make up their minds to move on a mile or so, how easy they traveled. Mr. Abraham didn't have to lug off ten or twelve wagon loads of furniture to the Safe Deposit Company, and spend weeks and weeks a settlin' his bisness, in Western lands, and Northern mines, Southern railroads, and Eastern wildcat stocks, to get ready to go. And Miss Abraham didn't have to have a dozen dress-makers in the house for a month or two, and messenger boys, and dry goods clerks, and have to stand and be fitted for basks and polenays, and back drapery, and front drapery, and tea gowns, and dinner gowns, and drivin' gowns, and mornin' gowns, and evenin' gowns, and etectery, etcetery, etcetery. No, all the preperations she had to make wuz to wrop her mantilly a little closter round her, and all Mr. Abraham had to do wuz to gird up his lions. That is what it sez. And I don't believe it would take much time to gird up a few lions, it don't seem to me as if it would. And when these few simple preperations had been made, they jest histed up their tent and laid it acrost a camel, and moved on a mild or two, walkin' afoot. Why jest imagine if Miss Abraham had to travel with eight or ten big Saratoga trunks, how could they have been got up onto that camel? It couldn't lave been done. The camel would have died, and old Mr. Abraham would also have expired a tryin' to lift 'em up. No, it was all for the best. And jest think on't, for all of these simple, stay to home ways, they called themselves Pilgrims and Sojourners. Good land! What would they have thought nowadays to see folks make nothin' of settin' off for China, or Japan or Jerusalem before breakfast. And what did they know of the hardships of civilization? Now to sposen the case, sposen Miss Abraham had to live in New York winters, and go to two or three big receptions every day, and to dinner parties, and theatre parties, and operas and such like, evenin's, and receive and return about three thousand calls, and be on more 'n a dozen charitable boards (hard boards they be too, some on 'em) and lots of other projects and enterprizes -- be on the go the hull winter, with a dress so tight she couldn't breathe instead of her good loose robes, and instead of her good comfortable sandals have her feet upon high-heeled shoes pinchin' her corns almost unto distraction. And then to Washington to go all through it agin, and more too, and Florida, and Cuba; and then to the sea-shore and have it all over agin with sea bathin' added. And then to the mountains, and all over agin with climbin' round added. Then to Europe, with seas sickness, picture galleries, etc., added. And so on home agin in the fall to begin it all over agin. Why Miss Abraham would be so tuckered out before she went half through with one season, that she would be a dead 4 mother. And Mr. Abraham -- why one half hour down at the stock exchange would have been too much for that good old creeter. The yells and cries, and distracted movements of the crowd of Luker Gatherers there, would have skairt him to death. He never would have lived to follow Miss Abraham round from pillow to post through summer and winter seasons -- he wouldn't have lived to