City and town life -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"When I was twenty," she said, "I use' to want to talk about things that
wasn't commonly mentioned here in Friendship--I mean, well, like little
things I'd read about noted people an' what they said an' done--an' like
that. But when you brought 'em up in the conversation, folks always
thought you was tryin' to show off. An' if you quoted a verse o' poetry
in company, my land, there was a hush like you'd swore. So gradually I'd
got to keepin' still about such things. But in that dream we talked an'
talked--said things about old noted folks right out an' told about 'em
without beginnin' it 'I happened to read the other day.' An' I know I
mentioned the sun on the leaves an' the way the clouds looked, right
out, too, without bein' afraid the girl that was me would think I was
affected. An' I said little things about--oh, like about goblins in the
wood an' figgers in the smoke, without bein' scared that mothers would
hear of it an' not let their children come to see me. An' then I made up
things an' said--things I was always wantin' to say--like about
expectin' to meet Summer walkin' down the road, an' so on: things that
if I'd said so's they'd got out around Friendship, folks would 'a'
thought I was queer an' not to be trusted to bring up their mail from
town. I said all those kind o' things, like I was really born to talk
what I thought about. An' the girl that was me understood what I meant.
An' we laughed a good deal--oh, how we laughed together. That was 'most
the best of all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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