Samantha at Saratoga [11]
to. "Now Ardelia is a sweet pretty lookin' girl, she can set down in a cushioned arm-chair by a happy fireside, with pretty baby faces a clusterin' around her and some man's face like the sun a reflectin' back the light of her happy heart. But she can't sit up on the pinnacle of fame's pillow. I don't believe she can ever get up there, I don't. Honestly speakin', I don't." "Envy!" sez Miss Tutt, "glarin', shameless envy! You don't want Ardelia to rise! You don't want her to mount that horse I spoke of; you don't want to own that you see genius in her. But you do, Josiah Allen's wife, you know you do -- " "No," sez I, "I don't see it. I see the sweetness of pretty girlhood, the beauty and charm of openin' life, but I don't see nothin' else, I don't, honest. I don't believe she has got genius," sez I, "seein' you put the question straight to me and depend a answer; seein' her future career depends on her choice now, I must tell you that I believe she would succeed better in the millionary trade or the mantilly maker's than she will in tryin' to mount the horse you speak on. "Why," sez I, candidly, "some folks can't get up on that horse, their legs haint strong enough. And if they do manage to get on, it throws 'em, and they lay under the heels for life. I don't want to see Ardelia there, I don't want to see her maimed and lamed and stunted so early in the mornin' of life, by a kick from that animal, for she can't ride it," sez I, "honestly she can't. "There is nothin' so useless in life, and so sort a wearin' as to be a lookin' for sunthin' that haint there. And when you pretend it is there when it haint, you are addin' iniquity to uselessness; so if you'll take my advice, the advice of a wellwisher, you will stop lookin', for I tell you plain that it haint there." Sez Miss Tutt, "Josiah Allen's wife, you have for reasens best known to your conscience baulked my hopes of a speedy immortality. You have willfully tried to break down my hopes of an immense, immediate income to flow out of them poems for luxuries, jewelry, charity, etc. But I can at least claim this at your hands, I demand honesty. Tell me honestly what you yourself think of them poems." Sez I (gettin' up sort a quick and goin' into the buttery, and bringin' out a little basket), "Here are some beautiful sweet apples, won't you have one?" "Apples, at such a time as this;" sez Miss Tutt "When the slumberin' world trembles before the advancin' tread of a new poet -- When the heavens are listenin' intently to ketch the whispers of an Ardelia's fate -- Sweet apples! in such a time as this!" sez she. But she took two. "I demand the truth," sez she. "And you are a base, trucklin' coward, if you give it not." Sez I, tryin' to carry off the subject and the apples into the buttery; "Poetry ort to have pains took with it." "Jealousy!" sez Miss Tutt. "Jealousy might well whisper this. Envy, rank envy might breathe the suspicion that Ardelia haint been took pains with. But I can see through it," sez she. "I can see through it." "Well," sez I, wore out, "if they belonged to me, and if she wuz my girl, I would throw the verses into the fire, and set her to a trade." She stood for a minute and bored me through and through with them eyes. Why it seemed as if there wuz two holes clear through my very spirit, and sole; she partly lifted that fearful lookin' umberell as if to pierce me through and through; it wuz a fearful seen. At last she turned, and flung the apple she wuz a holdin' onto the floor at my feet -- and sez she, "I scorn 'em, and you too." And she kinder stomped her feet and sez, "I fling off the dust I have gethered here, at your feet." Now my floor wuz clean and looked like yeller glass, almost, it wuz so shinin' and spotless, and I resented the idee of her sayin' that she collected dust off from it. But I didn't say nothin' back. She had the bag of poetry on her arm, and I didn't feel like addin' any more to her troubles. But Ardelia, after her mother had swept out ahead, turned round and held out her hand, and smiled a sweet but ruther of