Samantha at Saratoga [40]
wuz brung up sharp but good. But not one lie could I ketch him in. And he stuck to it, that his father wuz a banker and doin' a heavy business. Wall, it kep' on, she a goin' with him through ambition, for I see plain, by signs I knoo, that she didn't love him half as well as she did Abram. And I felt bad, dretful bad, to set still and see Ambition ondoin' of her. For oft and oft she would speak to me of Bial's father's bank and the heft of the business he wuz a doin'. And I finally got so worked up in my mind that I gin a sly hint to Abram Gee, that if he ever wanted to get Ardelia Tutt, he had better make a summer trip to Saratoga. I never told Ardelia what I had done, but trusted to a overrulin' destiny, that seems to enrap babys, and lunatiks, and soft little wimmen, when their heads get kinder turned by a man, and to Abram's honest face when she should compare it with Bial Flamburg's, and to Abram's pure, sweet breath with that mixture of stale cigars, tobacco, beer, and peppermint. But Abram wrote back to me that his mother wuz a lyin' at the p'int of death with a fever - that his sister Susan wuz sick a bed with the same fever and couldn't come a nigh her and he couldn't leave what might be his mother's death-bed. And he sez, if Ardelia had forgot him in so short a time, mebby it wuz the best thing he could do, to try and forget her. Anyway, he wouldn't leave his dying mother for anything or anybody. That wuz Abram Gee all over, a doin' his duty every time by bread and humanity. But he added a postscript and it wuz wrote in a agitated hand - that jest as soon as his mother got so he could leave her, he should come to Saratoga.
IX. JOSIAH 'S FLIRTATIONS.
They say there is a sight of flirtin' done at Saratoga. I didn't hear so much about it as Josiah did, naturally there are things that are talked of more amongst men than women. Night after night he would come home and tell me how fashionable it wuz, and pretty soon I could see that he kinder wanted to follow the fashion. I told him from the first on't that he'd better let it entirely alone. Says I, "Josiah Allen, you wouldn't never carry it through successful if you should undertake it -- and then think of the wickedness on't." But he seemed sot. He said "it wuz more fashionable amongst married men and wimmen, than the more single ones," he said "it wuz dretful fashionable amongst pardners."` "Wall," says I, "I shall have, nothin' to do with it, and I advise you, if you know when you are well off, to let it entirely alone." "Of course," says he, fiercely, "You needn't have nothin' to do with it. It is nothin' you would want to foller up. And I would ruther see you sunk into the ground, or be sunk myself, than to see you goin' into it. Why," says he, savagely, "I would tear a man lim from lim, if I see him a tryin' to flirt with you." (Josiah Allen worships me.) "But," says he, more placider like, "men have to do things sometimes, that they know is too hard for their pardners to do -- men sometimes feel called upon to do things that their pardners don't care about -- that they haint strong enough to tackle. Wimmen are fragile creeters anyway." "Oh, the fallacy of them arguments -- and the weakness of 'em. But I didn't say nothin' only to reiterate my utterance, that "if he went into it, he would have to foller it up alone, that he musn't expect any help from me." "Oh no!" says he. "Oh! certainly not." His tone wuz very genteel, but there seemed to be sumthin' strange in it. And I looked at him pityin'ly over my specks. The hull idea on it wuz extremely distasteful to me, this talk about flirtin', and etc., at our ages, and with our stations in the Jonesville meetin' house, and with our grandchildren. But I see from day to day that he wuz a hankerin' after it, and I almost made up my mind that I should have to let him make a trial, knowin' that experience wuz the best teacher, and knowin' that his morals wuz sound, and he wuz devoted to me, and only went into the enterprize because he thought it wuz fashionable. There wuz a young English girl
IX. JOSIAH 'S FLIRTATIONS.
They say there is a sight of flirtin' done at Saratoga. I didn't hear so much about it as Josiah did, naturally there are things that are talked of more amongst men than women. Night after night he would come home and tell me how fashionable it wuz, and pretty soon I could see that he kinder wanted to follow the fashion. I told him from the first on't that he'd better let it entirely alone. Says I, "Josiah Allen, you wouldn't never carry it through successful if you should undertake it -- and then think of the wickedness on't." But he seemed sot. He said "it wuz more fashionable amongst married men and wimmen, than the more single ones," he said "it wuz dretful fashionable amongst pardners."` "Wall," says I, "I shall have, nothin' to do with it, and I advise you, if you know when you are well off, to let it entirely alone." "Of course," says he, fiercely, "You needn't have nothin' to do with it. It is nothin' you would want to foller up. And I would ruther see you sunk into the ground, or be sunk myself, than to see you goin' into it. Why," says he, savagely, "I would tear a man lim from lim, if I see him a tryin' to flirt with you." (Josiah Allen worships me.) "But," says he, more placider like, "men have to do things sometimes, that they know is too hard for their pardners to do -- men sometimes feel called upon to do things that their pardners don't care about -- that they haint strong enough to tackle. Wimmen are fragile creeters anyway." "Oh, the fallacy of them arguments -- and the weakness of 'em. But I didn't say nothin' only to reiterate my utterance, that "if he went into it, he would have to foller it up alone, that he musn't expect any help from me." "Oh no!" says he. "Oh! certainly not." His tone wuz very genteel, but there seemed to be sumthin' strange in it. And I looked at him pityin'ly over my specks. The hull idea on it wuz extremely distasteful to me, this talk about flirtin', and etc., at our ages, and with our stations in the Jonesville meetin' house, and with our grandchildren. But I see from day to day that he wuz a hankerin' after it, and I almost made up my mind that I should have to let him make a trial, knowin' that experience wuz the best teacher, and knowin' that his morals wuz sound, and he wuz devoted to me, and only went into the enterprize because he thought it wuz fashionable. There wuz a young English girl