第41章 MISS G.WASHINGTON FLAMM(4)
It is dangerus, and I won't go myself, nor let you go.""Let," sez I to myself."That is rather of a gaulin' word to me.
Won't let me go." But then I thought ag'in, and thought how love and tenderness wuz a dictatin' the term, and I thought to myself, it has a good sound to me, I like the word.I love to hear him say he won't let me go.
And truly to me it looked hazerdus.But Miss Flamm seemed ready to go on, and onwillin'ly I followed on after her footsteps.But I looked 'round, and said "Good-bye" in my heart, to the fine trees, and cleer, brown waters of the brook, the grass, and the wild flowers, and the sweet peace that wuz over all.
"Good-bye," sez I."If I don't see you ag'in, you'll find some other lover that will appreciate you, though I am fur away."They didn't answer me back, none on 'em, but I felt that they understood me.The pines whispered sunthin' to each other, and the brook put its moist lips up to the pebbly shore and whispered sunthin' to the grasses that bent down to hear it.I don't know exactly what it wuz, but it wuz sunthin' friendly I know, for Ifelt it speak right through the soft, summer sunshine into my heart.They couldn't exactly tell what they felt towards me, and I couldn't exactly tell what I felt towards them, yet we understood each other; curi'us, haint it?
Wall, we got into the carriage ag'in, one of her relatives gettin' down to open the door.They knew what good manners is;I'll say that for 'em.And Miss Flamm took her dog into her arms seemin'ly glad to get holt of him ag'in, and kissed it several times with a deep love and devotedness.She takes good care of that dog.And what makes it harder for her to handle him is, her dress is so tight, and her sleeves.I s'pose that is why she can't breathe any better, and what makes her face and hands red, and kinder swelled up.She can't get her hands to her head to save her, and if a assassin should strike her, she couldn't raise her arm to ward off the blow if he killed her.I s'pose it worrys her.
And she has to put her bunnet on jest as quick as she gets her petticoats on, for she can't lift he arms to save her life after she gets her corsets on.She owned up to me once that it made her feel queer to be a walkin' 'round her room with not much on only her bunnet all trimmed off with high feathers and artificial flowers.
But she said she wuz willing to do anythin' necessary, and she felt that she must have her waist taper, no matter what stood in the way on't.She loves the looks of a waist that tapers.That wuz all the fault she found with the Goddus of Liberty enlightenin' the world in New York Harber.We got to talkin'
about it and she said, "If that Goddus only had corsets on, and sleeves that wuz skin tight, and her overskirt looped back over a bustle, it would be perfect!"But I told her I liked her looks as well ag'in as she wuz."Why,"sez I, "How could she lift her torch above her head? And how could she ever enlighten the world, if she wuz so held down by her corsets and sleeves that she couldn't wave her torch?"She see in a minute that it couldn't be done.She owned up that she couldn't enlighten the world in that condition, but as fur as looks went, it would be perfectly beautiful.
But I don't think so at all.But, as I say, Miss Flamm has a real hard time on't, all bard down as she is, and takin' all the care of that dog, day and night.She is jest devoted to it.
Why jest before we started a little lame girl with a shabby dress, but a face angel sweet, came to the side of the carriage to sell some water lilies.Her face looked patient, and wistful, and she jest held out her flowers silently, and stood with her bare feet on the wet ground and her pretty eyes lookin' pitifully into our'n.She wanted to sell 'em awfully, I could see.And Ishould have bought the hull of 'em immegitly, my feelin's was sech, but onfortionably I had left my port-money in my other pocket, and Josiah said he had left his (mebby he had).But Miss Flamm would have bought 'em in a minute, I knew, the child's face looked so mournful and appealin'; she would have bought 'em, but she wuz so engrossed by the dog; she wuz a holdin' him up in front of her a admirin' and carressin' of him, so's she never ketched sight of the lame child.
No body, not the best natured creeter in the world, can see through a dog when it is held clost up to the eye, closer than anything else.
Wall, we drove down to what they called Vichy Spring and there on a pretty pond clost to the springhouse, we see a boat with a bycycle on it, and a boy a ridin' it.The boat wuz rigged out to look like a swan with its wings a comin' up each side of the boy.
And down on the water, a sailin' along closely and silently wuz another swan, a shadow swan, a follerin' it right along.It wuz a fair seen.
And Josiah sez to me, "He should ride that boat before he left Saratoga; he said that wuz a undertakin' that a man might be proud to accomplish."Sez I, "Josiah Allen, don't you do anything of the kind.""I MUST, Samantha," sez he.And then he got all animated about fixin' up a boat like it at home.Sez he, "Don't you think it would be splendid to have one on the canal jest beyond the orchard?" And sez he, "Mebby, bein' on a farm, it would be more appropriate to have a big goose sculptured out on it; don't you think so?"Sez I, "Yes, it would be fur more appropriate, and a goose a ridin' on it.But," sez I, "you will never go into that undertakin' with my consent, Josiah Allen.""Why," sez he, "it would be a beautiful recreation; so uneek."But at that minute Miss Flamm gin the order to turn round and start for the Moon, or that is how I understood her, and Iwhispered to Josiah and sez, "She means to go in the buggy, for the land's sake!"And Josiah sez, "Wall, I haint a goin' and you haint.I won't let you go into anythin' so dangerus.She will probably drive into a baloon before long, and go up in that way, but jest before she drives in, you and I will get out, Samantha, if we have to walk back.""I never heard of anybody goin' up in a baloon with two horses and a buggy," sez I.