第64章 AT A LAWN PARTY(2)

such profane language on sech a solemn subject."Wall, we went into a good lookin'store and I wuz jest a lookin' at some lawn and a wonderin' how many yards I should want, when who should come in but Miss Flamm to get a rooch for her neck.

And she told me that I didn't need any lawn, and that it wuz a Garden party, and folks dressed in anything they wuz a mind to, though sez she, "A good many go in full dress.""Wall," sez I calmly, "I have got one." And she told me to come in good season.

That afternoon, Josiah a bein' out for a walk, I took out of my trunk a dress that Alminy Hagidon had made for me out of a very full pattern I had got of a peddler, and wanted it all put in, so's it would fade all alike, for I mistrusted it wouldn't wash.

It wuz gethered-in full round the waist, and the sleeves wuz set in full, and the waist wuz kinder full before, and it had a deep high ruffle gathered-in full round the neck.It wuz a very full dress, though I haint proud, and never wuz called so.Yet anybody duz take a modest pleasure in bein' equal to any occasion and comin' up nobly to a emergency.And I own that I did say to myself, as I pulled out the gethers in front, "Wall, there may be full dresses there to-night, but there will be none fuller than mine."And I wuz glad that Alminy had made it jest as she had.She had made it a little fuller than even I had laid out to have it, for she mistrusted it would shrink in washin'.It wuz a very full dress.It wuz cambrick dark chocolate, with a set flower of a kind of a cinnamon brown and yellow, it wuz bran new and looked well.

Wall, I had got it on, and wuz contemplatin' its fullness with complacency and a hand-glass, a seein' how nobly it stood out behind, and how full it wuz, when Josiah Allen came in.I had talked it over with him, before he went out -- and he wuz as tickled as I wuz, and tickleder, to think I had got jest the right dress for the occasion.But he sez to me the first thing -- "You are all wrong, Samantha, full dress means low neck and short sleeves."Sez I, "I know better!"

Sez he, "It duz."

Sez I, "Somebody has been a foolin' you, Josiah Allen! There ain't no sense in it.Do you s'pose folks would call a dress full, when there wuzn't more'n half a waist and sleeves to it.

I'd try to use a little judgment, Josiah Allen! "But he contended that he wuz in the right on't.And he took up his best vest that lay on the bed, and sot down, and took out his jack knife and went a rippin' open one of the shoulders, and sez I, "What are you doin', Josiah Allen?""Why, you can do as you are a mind to, Samantha Allen," sez he.

"But I shall go fashionable, I shall go in full dress."Sez I, "Josiah Allen do you look me in the face and say you are a goin' in a low neck vest, and everything, to that party to-night?""Yes, mom, I be.I am bound to be fashionable." And he went to rollin' up his shirt sleeves and turnin' in the neck of his shirt, in a manner that wuz perfectly immodest.

I turned my head away instinctively, for I felt that my cheek wuz a gettin' as red as blood, partly through delicacy and partly through righteous anger.Sez I, "Josiah Allen, be you a calculatin' to go there right out in public before men and wimmen, a showin' your bare bosom to a crowd? Where is your modesty, Josiah Allen? Where is your decency?"Sez he firmly, "I keep 'em where all the rest do, who go in full dress."I sot right down in a chair and sez I, "Wall there is one thing certain; if you go in that condition, you will go alone.Why,"sez I, "to home, if Tirzah Ann, your own daughter, had ketched you in that perdickerment, a rubbin' on linement or anything, you would have jumped and covered yourself up, quicker'n a flash, and likeways me, before Thomas Jefferson.And now you lay out to go in that way before young girls, and old ones, and men and wimmen, and want me to foller on after your example.What in the world are you a thinkin' on, Josiah Allen?""Why I'm a thinkin, on full dress," sez be in a pert tone, a kinder turnin' himself before the glass, where he could get a good view of his bones.His thin neck wuzn't much more than bones, anyway, and so I told him.And I asked him if he could see any beauty in it, and sez I, "Who wants to look at our old bare necks, Josiah Allen? And if there wuzn't any other powerful reeson of modesty and decency in it, you'd ketch your death cold, Josiah Allen, and be laid up with the newmoan.You know you would," sez I, "you are actin' like a luny, Josiah Allen.""It is you that are actin' like a luny," sez he bitterly."Inever propose anything of a high fashionable kind but what you want to break it up.Why, dumb it all, you know as well as I do, that men haint called as modest as wimmen anyway.And if they have the name, why shouldn't they have the game? Why shouldn't they go round half dressed as well as wimmen do? And they are as strong agin; if there is any danger to health in it they are better able to stand it.But," sez he, in the same bitter axents, "you always try to break up all my efforts at high life and fashion.I presume you won't waltz to-night, nor want me to."I groaned several times in spite of myself, and sithed, "Waltz!"sez I in awful axents."A classleader! and a grandfather! and talkin' about waltzin'!"Sez Josiah, "Men older than me waltz, and foller it up.Put their arms right round the prettiest girls in the room, hug 'em, and swing 'em right round" -- sez he kinder spoony like.

I said nothin' at them fearful words, only my groans and sithes became deeper and more voyalent.And in a minute I see through the fingers with which I had nearly covered my face, that he wuz a pullin' down his shirt sleeves and a puttin' his jack knife in his pocket.

That man loves me.And love sways him round often times when reesun and sound argument are powerless.Now, the sound reesun of the case didn't move him, such as the indelicacy of makin' a exhibition of one's self in a way that would, if displayed in a heathen, be a call for missionarys to convert 'em, and that makes men blush when they see it in a Christian woman.

The sound reason of its bein' the fruitful cause of disease and death, through the senseless exposure.