第35章 JOSIAH 'S FLIRTATIONS(4)

about there not bein' any future." And he says, "It wuz a good deal like a man laughin' and clappin' his hands to see his house burn down"And I sez, "it wuz far wurse, for his home wouldn't stand more'n a 100 years or so, and this home he wuz a tryin' to destroy, wuz one that would last through eternity." "But," says I, "it hain't built by hands, and I guess their hands hain't strong enough to tear it down, nor high enough to set fire to it."And the Deacon says, "Jest so, Miss Allen, you spoke truthfully, and eloquent." (The Deacon is very smart.)When we got into the buggy to start, the Deacon says, "I would like to resoom the conversation with you, Josiah Allen's wife, a goin' back."And Druzilla spoke right out and says, "I will set on the front seat by Ezra." I says, "Oh no, Druzilla, I can hear the Deacon from where I sot before."But the Deacon says, Talkin' loud towards night always offected his voice onpleasantly, mebby Druzilla and he had better change seats.

Again I demurred.And then Druzilla said she must set by Ezra, she wanted to tell him sumthin' in confidence.

And so it wuz arraigned, for I felt that I wuz not the one to come between pardners, no indeed.The road laid peacefuller and beautifuller than ever, or so it seemed under the sunset glory that sort o' hung round it.Jest about half way through the woods we met the English girl, a stridin' along alone, each step more'n 3 feet long, or so it seemed to me.There wuz a look of health, and happy determination on her forwerd as she strided rapidly by.

I would have fain questioned her concernin' my pardner, as she strode by, but before I could call out, or begon to her she wuz far in the rearwerd, and goin' in a full pressure and in a knot of several miles an hour.

Wall, from that minute I felt strange and curious.And though Druzilla and Ezra was agreeable and the Deacon edifyin', I didn't seem to feel edified, and the most warm-hearted looks didn't seem to warm my heart none, it wuz oppressed with gloomy forebodings of, Where wuz my pardner? They had laid out to set out together.

Had they sot? This question was a goverin' me, and the follerin'

one: If they had sot out together, where wuz my pardner, Josiah Allen, now? As I thought these feerful thoughts, instinctively Iturned around to see if I could see a trace of his companion in the distance.Yes, I could ketch a faint glimpse of her as she wuz mountin' a diclivity, and stood for an instant in sight, but long before even, she disopeered agin, for her gait wuz tremendous, and at a rate of a good many knots she wuz a goin', that I knew.And the fearful thought would rise, Josiah Allen could not go more than half a knot, if he could that.He wuz a slow predestinatur any way, and then his corns was feerful, and never could be told -- and his boots had in 'em the elements of feerful sufferin'.It wuz all he could do when he had 'em on to hobble down to the spring, and post-office.Where? where wuz he?

And she a goin' at the rate of so many knots.

Oh! the agony of them several minutes, while these thoughts wuz rampagin through my destracted brain.

Oh! if pardners only knew the agony they bring onto their devoted companions, by their onguarded and thoughtless acts, and attentions to other females, gin without proper reseerch and precautions, it would draw their liniments down into expressions of shame and remorse.Josiah wouldn't have gone with her if he had known the number of knots she wuz a goin', no, not one step --then why couldn't he have found out the number of them knots --why couldn't he? Why can't pardners look ahead and see to where their gay attentions, their flirtations that they call mild and innercent, will lead 'em to? Why can't they realize that it haint only themselves they are injurin', but them that are bound to 'em by the most sacred ties that folks can be twisted up in? Why can't they realize that a end must come to it, and it may be a fearful and a shameful one, and if it is a happiness that stops, it will leave in the heart when happiness gets out, a emptiness, a holler place, where like as not onhappiness will get in, and mebby stay there for some time, gaulin' and heart-breakin' to the opposite pardner to see it go on?

If it is indifference, or fashion, or anything of that sort, why it don't pay none of the time, it don't seem to me it duz, and the end will be emptier and hollerer then the beginnin'.

In the case of my pardner it wuz fashion, nothing but the butterfly of fashion he wuz after, to act in a high-toned, fashionable manner, like other fashionable men.And jest see the end on't why he had brought sufferin' of the deepest dye onto his companion, and what, what hed he brought onto himself -- onto his feet?

Oh! the agony of them several moments while them thoughts was a rackin' at me.The moments swelled out into a half hour, it must have been a long half hour, before I see far ahead, for the eyes of love is keen - a form a settin' on the grass by the wayside, that I recognized as the form of my pardner.As we drew nearer we all recognized the figure -- but Josiah Allen didn't seem to notice us.His boots was off, and his stockin's, and even in that first look I could see the agony that was a rendin' them toes almost to burstin'.Oh, how sorry I felt for them toes! He was a restin' in a most dejected and melancholy manner on his hand, as if it wuz more than sufferin' that ailed him -- he looked a sufferer from remorse, and regret, and also had the air of one whom mortification has stricken.

He never seemed to sense a thing that wuz passin' by him, till the driver pulled up his horses clost by him, and then he looked up and see us.And far be it from me to describe the way he looked in his lowly place on the grass.There wuz a good stun by him on which he might have sot, but no, he seemed to feel too mean to get up onto that stun; grass, lowly, unassumin' grass, wuz what seemed to suit him best, and on it he sot with one of his feet stretched out in front of him.