Samantha at Saratoga [58]
will be happy. The mild, bald gentleman will make you happy. He will lead you to the altar in spite of the light-complected woman with the blue bat on." Ardelia Tutt had on a blue hat, the idee! But I let her go on. Thinkses I, "I have paid my money and now it stands me in hand to get the worth on't." So she comferted me up with the hope of gettin' my Josiah for quite a spell. Gettin' my pardner! Gettin' the father of my childern, and the grandparent of my grandchildren! Jest think on't, will you? But then she branched off and told me things that wuz truly wonderful. Where and how she got 'em wuz and is a mistery to me. True things, and strange. Why it seemed same as if them tall pines, that wuz a whisperin' together over the Encampment wuz a peerin' over into my past, and a whisperin' it down to her. Or, in some way or other, the truth wuz a bein' filtered down to her comprehension through some avenue beyond our sense or sight. It is a curious thing, so I think, and so Josiah thinks. We talked it over after I came out, and we wuz a wanderin' on about the Encampment. I told him some of the wonderful things she had told me and he didn't believe it. "For," sez he, "I'll be hanged if I can understand and I won't believe anything that I can't understand!" And I pointed with the top of my umberel at a weed growin' by the side of the road, and sez I, "When you tell me jest how that weed draws out of the back ground jest the ingredients she needs to make her blue foretop, and her green gown, then I'll tell you all about this secret that Nater holds back from us a spell, but will reveel to us when the time comes." "Oh shave!" sez Josiah, "I guess I know all about a jimson weed. Why they groin; that is all there is about them. They grow, dumb 'em. I guess if you'd broke your back as many times as I have a pullin' 'em up, yon would know all about' em. Dumb their dumb picters," sez he, a scowlin' at 'em. It wuz the same kind of weed that growed in our onion beds. I recognized it. Them and white daisies, our garden wuz overrun by 'em both. But I sez, "Can you tell how the little seed of this weed goes down into the earth and selects jest what she wants out of the great storehouse below? She never comes out in a pink head-dress or a yellow gown. No, she always selects what will make the blue. It shows that it has life, intelligence, or else it couldn't think, way down under the ground, and grope in the dark, but always gropin' jest right, always a thinkin' the right thing, never, never in the hundreds and thousands of years makin' a mistake. Why, you couldn't do it, Josiah Allen, nor I couldn't. "And we set and see these silent mysteries a goin' on right at our door-step day by day, and year by year, and think nothin' of it, because it is so common. But if anything else, some new law, some new wonder we don't understand comes in our way, we are ready to reject it and say it is a lie. But you know, Josiah Allen," sez I, jest ready to go on eloquent - But I wuz interrupted jest here by my companion hollerin' up in a loud voice to a boy, "Here! you stop that, you young scamp! Don't you let me see you a doin' that agin!" Sez I, "What is it, Josiah Allen?" "Why look at them young imps, a throwin' sticks at that feeble old woman, over there." I looked, and my own heart wuz rousted up with indignation. I stood where I couldn't see her face, but I see she wuz old, feeble, and bent, a withered poor old creeter, and they had marked up over her, her name, Aunt Sally. I too wuz burnin' indignant to see a lot of young creeters a throwin' sticks at her, and I cried out loud, "Do you let Sarah be." They turned round and laughed in our faces, and I went on: "I'd be ashamed of myself if I wuz in your places to be a throwin' sticks at that feeble old woman. Why don't you spend your strengths a tryin' to do sunthin' for her? Git her a home, and sunthin' to eat, and a better dress. Before I'd do what you are a doin' now, I'd growvel in the dust. Why, if you wuz my boys I'd give you as good a spankin' as you ever had." But they