And he would air all his new doctrines onto me, jest as a doctor would
try all his new medicines on his wife to see if they wuz dangerous or
not. Wall, I spoze it wuz right, bein’ the pardner who took him for
worse as well as better.
And for family reasons I ever preferred that he should ventilate his
views in my indulgent ear before he let ’em loose onto society.
And one mornin’, havin’ read late the night before and bein’ asleep
when I come to bed, he begun promulgatin’ a new idee to me as he stood
by the washstand a washin’ him in the early mornin’ sunshine.
He wuz full of enthusiasm and eagerness, and did not brook anything
of the beautiful mornin’ scene that wuz spread out in the open winder
before him.
The cool, sweet mornin’ air a comin’ in through the clusters of
climbin’ roses, and through the tall boughs of a big old orange-tree
that stood between him and the sunshine.
Its glossy green leaves wuz new washed by a shower that had fell
over night, and it looked like a bride decked for her husband, with
garlands of white and pink posies, and anon the round, shinin’ globes
of the ripe fruit hangin’ like apples of gold right in amongst the
sweet blows and green leaves.
And way beyend the fields and orchards of Belle Fanchon stood the
tree-crowned mountain, and the sun wuz jest over the top, so the
pine-trees stood out dressed in livin’ green aginst the glowin’ sky.
It wuz a fair seen, a fair seen.
But my companion heeded it not. He had read some eloquent and powerful
speech the evenin’ before, and his mind had started off on a new tact.
His ambition was rousted up agin to do and to dare, as it had been so
many times before (see accounts of summer boarders, tenants, political
honors, etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth).
And sez he, a holdin’ the towel dreamily in his hands, “Samantha, my
mind is made up.”
I had not roze up yet, and I sez calmly from my piller, where I lay a
drinkin’ in the fair mornin’ scene:
“It wuzn’t a very hefty job, wuz it?”
Sez he, with about as much agin dignity as he had used before:
“You can comment on the size of my mind all you want to, but you will
probable think different about the heft of it before I get through with
the skeme I am jest about to embark on.”
And he waved the towel some like a banner and wiped his whiskers out in
a aggressive way, and stood up his few hairs over his foretop in a sort
of a helmet way, and I see by his axent and demeanors that he really
wuz in earnest about sunthin’ or other, and I beset him to tell me
what it wuz. For I am deathly afraid of his plans, and have been for
some time.
But he wouldn’t tell me for quite a spell. But at last as he opened the
chamber-door for a minute, and the grateful odor of the rich coffee and
the tender, brown steak come up from below, and wuz wafted into his
brain and gently stimulated it, he sort o’ melted down and told me all
about it.
He wanted to jine the Pan American Congress as a delegate and a worker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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