Samantha at Saratoga [60]
I s'posed she set on a rock a combin' out her long golden hair, a singin' her lurin' and enchanted song, to distant mariners she had known, and to the one who wuz a showin' of her off, before I had time to even glance at her, the maid, I was dumbfounded and stood aghast, at the mighty change that came over my pardner's linement. He towered up in grandeur and in wrath before me. He seemed almost like a offended male fowl when ravenin' hawks are angerin' of it beyond its strength to endure. I don't like that metafor; I don't love to compare my pardner to any fowl, wild or tame; but my frenzied haste to describe the fearful seen must be my excuse, and also my agitation in recallin' of it. He towered up, he fluttered so to speak majestically, and he says in loud wild axents that must have struck terror to the soul of that mariner, "Where is the hair-comb?" And then he shook his fist in the face of that mariner, and cries out once agin, "Where is them long golden tresses? Bring 'em on this instant! Fetch on that hair-comb, in a minute's time, or I'll prosecute you, and sue you, and take the law to you - !" The mariner quailed before him and sez I, "My dear pardner, be calm! Be calm!" "I won't be calm!" Sez I mildly, but firmly, "You must, Josiah Allen; you must! or you will break open your own chest. You must be calm." "And I tell you I won't be calm. And I tell you," says he, a turnin' to that destracted mariner agin "I tell you to bring on that comb and that long hair, this instant. Do you s'pose I'm goin' to pay out my money to see that rack-a-bone that I wouldn't have a layin' out in my barn-yard for fear of scerin' the dumb scere-crows out in the lot. Do you s'pose I'm goin' to pay out my money for seein' that dried-up mummy of the hombliest thing ever made on earth, the dumbdest, hombliest; with 2 or 3 horse hairs pasted onto its yellow old shell! Do you spose I'm goin' to be cheated by seein' that, into thinkin' it is a beautiful creeter a playin' and combin' her hair? Bring on that beautiful creeter a combin' out her long, golden hair this instant, and bring out the comb and I'll give you five minutes to do it in." He wuz hoorse with emotion, and he wuz pale round his lips as anything and leis eyes under his forward looked glassy. I wuz fearful of the result. Thinkses I, I will look and see what has wrecked my pardner's happiness and almost reasen. I looked in and I see plain that his agitation was nothin' to be wondered at. It did truly seem to be the hombliest, frightfulest lookin' little thing that wuz ever made by a benignant Providence or a taxy-dermis. I couldn't tell which made it. I see it all, but I see also, so firm, sot is my reasun onto its high throne on my heart, I see that to preserve my pardner's sanity, I must control my reasun at the sight that had tottered my pardner's. I turned to him, and tried to calm the seethin' waters, but he loudly called for the comb, and for the tresses, and the lookin' glass. And, askin' in a wild' sarcastic way where the song wuz that she sung to mariners? And hollerin' for him to bring on that rock at that minute, and them mariners, and ordered him to set her to singin'. The idee! of that little skeletin with her skinny lips drawed back from her shinin' fish teeth, a singin'. The idee on't! But truly, he wuz destracted and knew not what he did. The mariner in charge looked destracted. And the bystanders a standin' by wuz amazed, and horrowfied by the spectacle of his actin' and behavin'. And I knew not how I should termonate the seen, and withdraw him away from where he wuz. But in my destraction and agony of sole, I bethought me of one meens of quietin' him and as it were terrifyin' him into silence and be the meens of gettin' on him to leave the seen. I begoned to Ardelia to come forward and I sez in a whisper to her, "Take out your pencil and a piece of paper and stand up in front of him and go to writin' some of your poetry," And then I sez agin in tender agents, "Be calm, Josiah." "And I tell you that I won't be calm! And I tell you," a shakin'