General stores -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"You don't say that as if you b'lieved it over an' above hard, my dear,
but I do assure you that the expression means a lot to Western people.
Pretty soon her brother came to himself an' asked what had happened,
an' I said, 'Oh, nothin', except that when I'm in Turkey, an' likely to
stay awhile, I try to do as the turkeys do.' Well, things kept goin'
on, about that way, for some days, an' between thinkin' 'twas time
for that corn-meal to come, an' wishin' that it wasn't, an' wishin' a
lot of other things, I was in quite a state o' mind for a while, an'
self-examination didn't help me much.
"All the time there kep' runnin' in my mind an old sayin' that your
Uncle Jethro was mighty fond of--'There's only one hoss in the world,'
an' the most I could do to keep from bein' a plumb fool was to remind
myself that that sort of a hoss had some rights of its own that
ought to be respected. I showed off my own good p'ints as well as I
could, an' I coaxed Mary to go about with me considerable, because
Mrs. Somerton had told me that her judgment and taste were remarkably
good,--that's the excuse I made,--an' we talked about a lot o' things,
an' found we didn't disagree about much. I accidentally let out what I
was goin' to England for, an' she got powerful interested in it, for
she'd read an' heard lots about the way the poorest English live in big
cities, so she thought I was really goin' on missionary work, an' she
said she would almost be willing to be a man if she could have such a
job.
"She looked so splendid when she said it that I felt plumb
electrified--felt just as if a new nerve had suddenly been put into me
some way, so I made bold to say that she'd do that sort o' work far
better as a woman, an' that there was a way for her to do it, too, if
she was willin', an' if her minister would say a few words appropriate
to that kind of arrangement."
"That is exactly the way he spoke," said Mary, "and as coolly as if he
wasn't saying anything of special importance."
"Caleb's mind is sometimes in the clouds," Grace said, "where
everything for the time being appears just as it should be."
"That must be so, I reckon, Mrs. Somerton," said Caleb, "seein' that
you say it; but I want to remark that if I was in the clouds that day,
I got out of 'em mighty quick, an' down to earth, an' mebbe a mighty
sight lower; for Mary suddenly turned very white, an' right away I felt
as if Judgment Day had come, an' I'd been roped off among the goats.
But all of a sudden she turned rosy, an' said, very gentle-like an'
sweet, ''Tis a long way to London, an' you might change your mind on
the way.' Said I, ''Tis longer to eternity, but I'll be of the same
mind till then, an' after, too.' She was kind o' skittish for a while
after that, but she didn't do any kickin', which I took for a good
sign."
"Kicking, indeed!" said Mary, studying the decoration of her
coffee-cup. "Breathing was all the poor thing dared hope to do."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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