High Life in New York: A series of letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the church over to Weathersfield in the state of ConnecticutStephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
General
High Life in New York: A series of letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the church over to Weathersfield in the state of Connecticut
Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
I begun tu be allfired glad that I didn't ask her to have me yesterday,
for if she'd been as young as she seemed tu be, and as harnsome as an
angel, I wouldn't a had her arter seeing that room of her'n. A pocket
hankercher, worked and sprigged, and ruffled off with lace, was a lying
on the settee, but it was all grimmed over with dirt, and looked as if
it would a gin any thing for a sight of the wash tub. The carpet was as
soft and thick as could be, and it was all kivered over with bunches of
posies as nat'ral as life; but there was a great grease spot close by
the fire, where somebody had upsot a lamp, and all around the edges and
in the corners it looked as if it hadn't been swept for ever so long. A
chest of drawers, solid, shiny mahogany--with a great looking-glass,
swung between two pieces of mahogany on the top, stood on one side of
the room, and there, a hanging over the edge on 'em, as true as I live,
were the long, harnsome curls that I'd seen on Miss Miles when she was
tu cousin Mary's party! Wal, think sez I, if this don't take the rag off
the bush! What du you think I saw next? A glass tumbler about half full
of water, with three nice, leetle, white teeth a lying in the bottom on
it! I couldn't help but give a leetle whistle when I saw them. Think sez
I, it's jest as like as not that Miss Miles wont pucker up her mouth and
smile, quite so much this morning as she did yesterday, any how.
There were two leetle china cups with the kivers a lying down by them;
one was filled with white stuff, kinder like flour, only rather more
gritty, and t'other was full of something that looked as much like rose
leaves ground down to powder as anything. A leetle chunk of cotton wool
was stuck into it, but what on arth it was for, I couldn't make out.
There were two or three silk cushions chuck full of pins, on the
drawers, and there was no eend tu the leetle glass bottles all sprigged
off with gold, a lying round on the mantle-shelf, as well as on the
tables and the chest of drawers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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