“You knaow a little of haow things hev’ gone, though you’ve allus took precious good pains to knaow ez little ez yeh could. You knaow that when you were a boy you were a rich man’s son, with yer pony, ’n’ yer dancin’ lessons, ’n’ yer college eddica-tion; ’n’ yer mother dressed well, ’n’ had a kerridge, ’n’ visited with th’ bes’ people of Albany, people who were _my_ friends tew when I used to go to Albany with yer grandfather. ’N’ what hev we come to? Yer mother slaved her life aout, lost all her ambition, lost all her pride, saw things goin’ to th’ dogs and didn’t knaow haow to stop ’em--sakes forbid thet I should say anything agin Sissly; she did all she could; p’raps ’twould ’ev gone different if she’d be’n a different kine o’ woman, p’raps not; there’s no use talkin’ ’baout thet. ’N’ ef I’d hed _my_ say, tew, maybe things’d be’n different; but its ez it is, ’n’ it’s no use cryin’ over spilt milk. “Father never meant to be hard with me. When he lef’ me nothin’ but a living aout o’ th’ farm, he expected, everybuddy expected, my Aunt Sabrina’d leave me a clean sixty thaousand dollars when she died. She was an ole woman, ’n’ a widow, ’n’ she hed no childern. She’d allus promised my father thet if I was named after her--confaound her name!--I shaould be her heir. ’N’ then, Iess’n a year after his death, what does the old huzzy up ’n’ do but marry some fortune hunter young enough to be her son, ’n’ give him every cent she hed in the world. He led her a fine dance of it, tew, ’n’ serve her right! But there I was, lef ’thaout a thing ’cep a roof over my head. “’N’ then Lemuel, nothin’ ud do but he must go to Californy when the gold cry riz, ’n’ no sooner’d he git there than he was homesick ’n’ hed to come back; ’n’ when he got back, ’n’ begun to hear what fortunes them who’d gone aout with him were a making, than he must start aout again. But where it’d be’n wilderness a few months b’fore, he faound cities naow, ’n’ ev’ry chance took up; then he got robbed o’ all his money, ’n’ hed to borrer, ’n’ then he took chills ’n’ fever off th’ isthmus, n’ hed to lay in quarantine fer weeks, on ’caount o’ th’ yellah fever; it’d be’n a poor year on the farm, ’n’ when he got back, it took ev’ry cent of his ready-money to set himself right. “From thet day to this, his Californy luck hez stuck to him like death to a nigger, tell here, to-day, the Fitches don’t think it wuth while to come to your poor mother’s fun’ral--I kin remember Lije Fitch when he was glad enough to beg beans o’ my father fer seed--’n’ I’m wearing borrered mournin’ of Sarah Andrewses, _a mile tew big for me!_”