Samantha at the St. Louis ExpositionHolley, Marietta
General
Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition
Holley, Marietta
Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 : Saint Louis, Mo.) -- Fiction
"I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen's wife, for I know you will
want to give to a noble cause I am workin' for, you and dear Mr. Allen.
It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin' heart, and I knew
you'd give liberal."
I'd forgot my portmoney that mornin' and didn't want right there in
Solomon's Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make
him fraxious. And I wuz havin' such a lot of lofty emotions there at
Jerusalem, I didn't want to bring 'em down by havin' words with my
pardner. And I knowed too that "dear Mr. Allen" would be apt to say hash
things that would bring him down in Jane Olive's estimation, he's so
clost and he never liked her to begin with.
So I said I couldn't very well stop and tend to it right there in
Solomon's Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should
come and see me. She wuz stayin' at a big tarven not so very fur from
Miss Huff's, and said she'd brought her orto and shuffler with her from
Chicago.
Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin' the last thing "_owe Revwah_," or
sunthin' like that and Josiah sez to me:
"Who's she twittin' us on? I don't owe nobody by that name, nor never
did, not a cent, I'm a man that pays my debts."
And I sez, "Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute it."
Jane Olive kinder smiled and passed on, and I'dno but in Fancy I and the
public may as well set down on the steps of Solomon's Temple, and I'll
tell about who Jane Olive Perkins wuz. She wuz Jane Olive Gowdey, and
married Samuel Perkins, old Eliphilet Perkinses second boy, and folks
thought she done mizable when she married him. Sam hadn't been put to
work much bein' sort o' weakly so his folks thought, he looked kinder
peaked.
But I spoze Sam enjoyed pretty good health all the time onbeknown to his
folks and wuz kinder savin' up his strength, layin' it up as you may say
for the time o' need, so he had it all when he wuz married. A master
hand he wuz to save things and make 'em count. For all he never did any
work to speak on, he had more proppity laid up than any of the Perkins
boys when he wuz married, he had saved so and sort o' speculated and
laid up.
He wuz kinder mean too, runnin' after wimmen at that time, though
onbeknown to Jane Olive or his folks, but it come out afterwards, he wuz
awful sly. When he married Jane Olive Gowdey that wuz a surprise too,
for Bill, the oldest boy, wanted her the worst way and everybody spozed
they wuz engaged. A good creeter Bill wuz, virtuous as Joseph, or any of
the old Bible Patriarchs, and virtuouser than lots of 'em.
But Sam, in jest that way of hisen, laid low and sort o' did the best he
could with what he had to do with, sort o' speculated and increased her
likin' for him on the sly (mean fellers will git ahead of good ones five
times out of ten, wimmen are so queer). And lo and behold! the first
Jonesville knew they up and got married.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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