第5章 SAMANTHA AT SARATOGA(3)

James Robbets's wife's sister had a second cousin who lived neighbor to a woman whose niece had been there, been right there on the spot.And Celestine Bobbet, Uncle Ephraim's Celestine, hearn it from James'es wife when she wuz up there last spring, it come straight.They all have to go in low necks.""And not a mite of anything on their heads," says Miss Spink.

Sez I in sarcastical axents, "Do men have to go in low necks too?""No," says Miss Bobbet."But they have to have the tails of their coats kinder pinted.Why," sez she, "I hearn of a man that had got clear to the incorporation and they wouldn't let him in because his coat kinder rounded off round the bottom, so he went out by the side of the road and pinned up his coat tails, into a sort of a pinted shape, and good land the incorporation let him right in, and never said a word."I contended that these things wuzn't so, but I found it wuz the prevailin' opinion.For when I went to see the dressmaker about makin' me a dress for the occasion, I see she felt just like the rest about it.My dress wuz a good black alpacky.I thought Iwould have it begun along in the edge of the winter, when she didn't have so much to do, and also to have it done on time.We laid out to start on the follerin' July, and I felt that I wanted everything ready.

I bought the dress the 7th day of November early in the forenoon, the next day after my pardner consented to go, and give 65 cents a yard for it, double wedth.I thought I could get it done on time, dressmakers are drove a good deal.But I felt that a dressmaker could commence a dress in November and get it done the follerin'

July, without no great strain bein' put onto her; and I am fur from bein' the one to put strains onto wimmen, and hurry 'em beyend their strength.But I felt Almily had time to make it on honor and with good buttonholes.

"Well," she sez, the first thing after she had unrolled the alpacky, and held it up to the light to see if it was firm -- sez she:

"I s'pose you are goin' to have it made with a long train, and low neck and short sleeves, and the waist all girted down to a taper?"I wuz agast at the idee, and to think Alminy should broach it to me, and I give her a piece of my mind that must have lasted her for days and days.It wuz a long piece, and firm as iron.But she is a woman who likes to have the last word and carry out her own idees, and she insisted that nobody was allowed in Saratoga --that they wuz outlawed, and laughed at if they didn't have trains and low necks, and little mites of waists no bigger than pipe-stems.

Sez I, "Alminy Hagidone, do you s'pose that I, a woman of my age, and a member of the meetin' house, am a goin' to wear a low-necked dress?""Why not?," sez she, "it is all the fashion and wimmen as old agin as you be wear 'em."Well, sez I, "It is a shame and a disgrace if they do, to say nothin' of the wickedness of it.Who do you s'pose wants to see their old skin and bones? It haint nothin' pretty anyway.And as fer the waists bein' all girted up and drawed in, that is nothin'