“You see,” said she, untying her bonnet strings, to give an easier
movement to her chin, “we didn't say where we was goin' when we started
out, for the truth was we didn't know. We couldn't afford to take no big
trip, and yet we wanted to do the thing up jus' as right as we could,
seein' as you had set your heart on it, an' as we had, too, for that
matter. Niagery Fall was what I wanted, but he said that it cost so much
to see the sights there that he hadn't money to spare to take us there
an' pay for all the sight-seein', too. We might go, he said, without
seein' the sights, or, if there was any way of seein' the sights without
goin', that might do, but he couldn't do both. So we give that up, and
after thinkin' a good deal, we agreed to go to some other falls, which
might come cheaper, an' may-be be jus' as good to begin on. So we
thought of Passaic Falls, up to Paterson, an' we went there, an' took a
room at a little hotel, an' walked over to the falls. But they wasn't
no good, after all, for there wasn't no water runnin' over em. There
was rocks and precipicers, an' direful depths, and everything for a good
falls, except water, and that was all bein' used at the mills. 'Well,
Miguel,' says I, 'this is about as nice a place for a falls as ever I
see,' but--”
“Miguel!” cried Euphemia. “Is that your husband's name?”
“Well, no,” said Pomona, “it isn't. His given name is Jonas, but I hated
to call him Jonas, an' on a bridal trip, too. He might jus' as well have
had a more romantic-er name, if his parents had 'a' thought of it. So
I determined I'd give him a better one, while we was on our journey,
anyhow, an' I changed his name to Miguel, which was the name of a
Spanish count. He wanted me to call him Jiguel, because, he said, that
would have a kind of a floating smell of his old name, but I didn't
never do it. Well, neither of us didn't care to stay about no dry falls,
so we went back to the hotel and got our supper, and begun to wonder
what we should do next day. He said we'd better put it off and dream
about it, and make up our minds nex' mornin', which I agreed to, an',
that evenin', as we was sittin' in our room I asked Miguel to tell me
the story of his life. He said, at first, it hadn't none, but when I
seemed a kinder put out at this, he told me I mustn't mind, an' he would
reveal the whole. So he told me this story:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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