第37章 JOSIAH 'S FLIRTATIONS(6)

And agin I says, "Josiah Allen." And agin the thought of his own feerful acts, and my warnin's came over him, and again mortification seemed to envelop him like a mantilly, the tabs goin' down and coverin' his lims -- and agin he didn't throw that boot.Agin Deacon Balch escaped oninjured, saved by my voice, and Josiah's inward conscience, inside of him.

Wall, suffice it to say, that after a long parley, Josiah Allen wuz a settin' on the high seat with the driver, a holdin' his boots in his hand, for truly no power on earth could have placed them boots on Josiah Allen's feet in the condition they then wuz.

And so he rode on howewards, occasionally a lookin' down on the Deacon with looks that I hope the recordin' angel didn't photograph, so dire, and so revengeful, and jealous, and -- and everything, they wuz.And ever, after ketchin' the look in my eye, the look in his'n would change to a heart-rendin' one of remorse, and sorrow, and shame for what he had done.And the Deacon, wantin' to be dretful perlite to him, would ask him questions, and I could see the side of Josiah's face, all glarin'

like a hyena at the sound of his voice, and then he would turn round and ossume a perlite genteel look as he answered him, and then he glare at me in a mad way every time I spoke to the Deacon, and then his mad look would change, even to one of shame and meakinness.And he in his stockin' feet, and a pertendin' that he didn't put his boots on, because it wuzn't wuth while to put 'em on agin so near bed-time.And he that sot out that afternoon a feelin' so haughty, and lookin' down on Ezra and Druzilla, and bein' brung back by 'em, in that condition -- and bein' goured all the time by thoughts of the ignominious way his flirtin' had ended, by her droppin' him by the side of the road, like a weed she had trampled on too hardly.And a bein' gourded deeper than all the rest of his agonies, by a senseless jealousy of Deacon Balch -- and a thinkin' for the first time in his life, what it would be, if her affections, that had been like a divine beacon to him all his life, if that flame should ever go out, or ever flicker in its earthly socket -- oh, those thoughts that he had seemed to consider in his own mad race for fashion -- oh, how that sass that had seemed sweet to him as a gander, oh how bitter and poisonous it wuz to partake of as a goose.

Oh! the agony of that ride.We went middlin' slow back -- and before we got to Saratoga the English girl went past us, she had been to the Sulphur Springs and back agin.She didn't pay no attention to us, for she wuz alayin' on a plan in her own mind, for a moonlight pedestrian excursion on foot, that evenin', out to the old battle ground of Saratoga.

Josiah never looked to the right hand or the left, as she passed him, at many, many a knot an hour.And I felt that my pardner's sufferin from that cause was over, and mine too, but oh! by what agony wuz it gained.For 3 days and 3 nights he never stood on any of his feet for a consecutive minute and a half, and I bathed him with anarky, and bathed his very soul with many a sweet moral lesson at the same time.And when at last Josiah Allen emerged from that chamber, he wuz a changed man in his demeanor and liniment, such is the power of love and womanly devotion.

He never looked at a woman durin' our hull stay at Saratoga, save with the eye of a philosopher and a Methodist.