Samantha at Saratoga [54]
as he seemed to have a appetite for 'em. And ag'in she called him "angel." The idee of a angel a gnawin' off beads and a yelpin'! And I asked her, and I couldn't help it. How her baby wuz that afternoon, and if she ever took it out to drive? And she said she didn't really know how it wuz this afternoon; it wuzn't very well in the mornin'. The nurse had it out somewhere, she didn't really know just where. And she said, no, she didn't take it out with her at all -- fur she didn't feel equal to the care of it, in this hot weather. Miss Flamm haint very well I could see that. The care of that dog is jest a killin' her, a carryin' it round with her all the time daytimes, and a bein' up with it so much nights. She said it had a dretful chill the night before, and she had to get up to warm blankets to put round it; "its nerves wuz so weak," she said, "and it wuz so sensative that she could not trust it to a nurse." She has a hard time of it; there haint a doubt of it. Wall, it wuz anon, or jest about anon, that Miss Flamm turned to me and sez, "Moon's is one of the pleasantest places on the lake. I want you to see it; folks drive out there a sight from Saratoga." And then I looked at Josiah, and Josiah looked at me, and peace and happiness settled down ag'in onto our hearts. Wall, we got there considerably before anon and we found that Moon's insted of bein' up in another planet wuz a big, long sort a low buildin' settled right down onto this old earth, with a immense piazza stretchin' along the side on't. And Miss Flamm and Josiah and me disembarked from the carriage right onto the end of it. But the dog and her relatives stayed back in the buggy and Josiah spoke bitterly to me ag'in but low, "They think it would hurt 'em to associate with me a little, dumb 'm; but I am jest as good as they be any day of the week, if I haint dressed up so fancy." "That's so," sez I, whisperin' back to him, "and don't let it worry you a mite. Don't try to act like Haman," sez I. "You are havin' lots of the good things of this world, and are goin' to have some fried potatoes. Don't let them two Mordecais at the gate, poison all your happiness, or you may get come up with jest as Haman wuz." "I'd love to hang'em," sez he, "as high as Haman's gallows would let 'em hang." "Why," sez I, "they haint injured you in any way. They seem to eat like perfect gentlemen. A little too exclusive and aristocratic, mebby, but they haint done nothin' to you." "No," sez he, "that is the stick on it, here we be, three men with a lot of wimmen. And they can't associate with me as man with man, but set off by themselves too dumb proud to say a word to me, that is the dumb of it." But at this very minute, before I could rebuke him for his feerful profanity, Miss Flamm motioned to us to come and take a seat round a little table, and consequently we sot. It was a long broad piazza with sights and sights of folks on it a settin' round little tables like our'n, and all a lookin' happy, and a laughin', and a talkin' and a drinkin' different drinks, sech as lemonade, etc., and eatin' fried potatoes and sech. And out in the road by which we had come, wuz sights and sights of vehicles and conveyances of all kinds from big Tally Ho coaches with four horses on 'em, down to a little two wheeled buggy. The road wuz full on'em. In front of us, down at the bottom of a steep though beautiful hill, lay stretched out the clear blue waters of the lake. Smooth and tranquil it looked in the light of that pleasant afternoon, and fur off, over the shinin' waves, lay the island. And white-sailed boats wuz a sailin' slowly by, and the shadow of their white sails lay down in the water a floatin' on by the side of the boats, lookin' some like the wings of that white dove that used to watch over Lake Saratoga. And as I looked down on the peaceful seen, the feelin's I had down in the wild wood, back of the Gizer Spring come back to me. The waves rolled in softly from fur off, fur off, bringin' a greetin' to me unbeknown to anybody, unbeknown to me. It come into my heart unbidden,