Sam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories: With IllustrationsStowe, Harriet Beecher
General
Sam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories: With Illustrations
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
New England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Short stories, American; Storytelling -- Fiction
“Lawyer Dean he flew round like a parched pea on a shovel. He said he
thought he could a gone in the darkest night, and put his hand on that
'ere will; but when he went where he thought it was, he found it warn't
there, and he knowed he'd kep' it under lock and key. What he thought
was the will turned out to be an old mortgage. Wal, there was an awful
row and a to-do about it, you may be sure. Ruth, she jist said nothin'
good or bad. And her not speakin' made Jeff a sight more uncomfortable
than ef she'd a hed it out with him. He told her it shouldn't make no
sort o' difference; that he should allers stand ready to give her all he
hed, if she'd only take him with it. And when it came to that she only
gin him a look, and went out o' the room.
“Jeff he flared and flounced and talked, and went round and round a
rumpussin' among the papers, but no will was forthcoming high or low.
Wal, now here comes what's remarkable. Ruth she told this 'ere, all the
particulars, to yer Aunt Lois and Lady Lothrop. She said that the night
after the funeral she went up to her chamber. Ruth had the gret
front chamber, opposite to Mis' Sullivan's. I've been in it; it was a
monstrous big room, with outlandish furniture in it, that the Gineral
brought over from an old palace out to Italy. And there was a great big
lookin'-glass over the dressin'-table, that they said come from Venice,
that swung so that you could see the whole room in it. Wal, she was a
standin' front o' this, jist goin' to undress herself, a hearin' the
rain drip on the leaves and the wind a whishin' and whisperin' in the
old elm-trees, and jist a thinkin' over her lot, and what should she
do now, all alone in the world, when of a sudden she felt a kind o'
lightness in her head, and she thought she seemed to see somebody in the
glass a movin'. And she looked behind, and there wa'n't nobody there.
Then she looked forward in the glass, and saw a strange big room, that
she'd never seen before, with a long painted winder in it; and along
side o' this stood a tall cabinet with a good many drawers in it. And
she saw herself, and knew that it was herself, in this room, along with
another woman whose back was turned towards her. She saw herself speak
to this woman, and p'int to the cabinet. She saw the woman nod her head.
She saw herself go to the cabinet, and open the middle drawer, and take
out a bundle o' papers from the very back end on't. She saw her take out
a paper from the middle, and open it, and hold it up; and she knew that
there was the missin' will. Wal, it all overcome her so that she fainted
clean away. And her maid found her a lyin' front o' the dressin'-table
on the floor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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