Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks: A Picture of New England Home LifePidgin, Charles Felton
General
Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks: A Picture of New England Home Life
Pidgin, Charles Felton
New England -- Fiction
"You better go out the front way," said she, and she ran before him and
opened the door leading to the front entry, and then the front door. As
he passed out, she said, "I wish you success, Mr. Sawyer, and we'll gin
you all our trade."
"Thank you!" said Quincy. He walked down the path, opened the front
gate, and as he closed it raised his hat to Mrs. Hawkins, who stood in
the front doorway, her thin, angular face wreathed in smiles.
"Wall," said she, as she closed the front door and walked back into the
kitchen, "what lies some folks tell. Now, that Professor Strout has
allus said that Mr. Sawyer was so stuck up that he wouldn't speak to
common folks. Wall, I think he's a real gentleman. 'Twon't do for any
one to run him down to me after this."
Here she thought of her money, and, spreading out the three bills in her
hand, she opened the kitchen door and screamed at the top of her voice,
"Jonas! Jonas!! Jonas!!!" There were no signs of Jonas. "Where is that
man? He's never 'round when he's wanted."
"What is it, Marthy?" said a voice behind her. Turning, she saw her
husband puffing away at his brierwood pipe.
"I thought you went out to the barn," said she, "to help Abner hitch
up?"
"Wall, I did," he replied; "but it didn't take two on us long to do
that. I eat so much chicken salad that it laid kinder heavy on my
stummick, so I went out in the wood-shed to have a smoke. But where did
you git all that money?"
"Mr. Sawyer took the front room for two weeks and paid for it ahead, and
do you know he said my chicken salad was jist as good as Mrs. Young and
Mrs. Parker makes down to Bosting."
"I don't know Mrs. Young nor Mrs. Parker," said Jonas, "but on makin'
chicken salad I'll match Mrs. Hawkins agin 'em any day;" and he went out
in the wood-shed to finish his smoke.
As Quincy walked down the road towards the Pettengill house his mind was
busy with his thoughts.
"To think," said he to himself, "that while I was listening to those
stories, to call them by no worse name, at the dinner table, the woman I
love was witnessing the death agony and listening to the last words of a
dear friend--the woman who's going to leave her a fortune. Now that she
knows that she's an heiress, I can speak; she never would have listened
to me, knowing that she was poor and I was rich, and I never could have
spoken to her with that secret in my mind that Mrs. Putnam told me--that
she was going to leave her all her money. I am so glad for Alice's sake,
even if she does not love me. She can have the best medical attendance
now, and she will be able to give all her time to her literary work, for
which she has a decided genius. Won't she be delighted when I tell her
that Leopold has placed all her stories and wants her to write a book?"
As he reached the front gate he saw Hiram driving up the road and Alice
was with him. As Hiram stopped, Quincy stepped forward and took Alice's
hand to assist her in alighting from the buggy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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