Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete, Marietta Holley [learn to read books txt] 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
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And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, “that she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes.”
And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down in front.
Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful, but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind, whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would get better and she did.
One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the month.
He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the next mornin' Miss Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that evenin'. It wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah had to be away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy loaded, and wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
But she said “that she felt that the walk would do her good.”
I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said “stanchils and religion wuz two separate things.” Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot. And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks in onxiety—it hain't my way.
CHAPTER XV.
Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same size.
Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach—a sort of a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert wuz tightenin'.
And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand. And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her head and said, “she didn't approve of it—she thought a chicken ought to be brung up by a hen.”
But Miss Charnick said, “Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have perished right there in the nest.”
But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, “that it wuz a hen's business, and nobody else's.”
And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to—they ought to be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin' and she said “that basks had gone out.”
And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
“Basks wuz out, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made polenay.”
And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour, Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick), “Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have got so little time to wear 'em.”
And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said somethin' about “hired girls keepin' their place.”
And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and others.
It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it
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