Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a PoliticianHolley, Marietta
Religion
Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician
Holley, Marietta
Methodist Church (U.S.) -- Fiction; Temperance and religion -- Fiction; Women -- Suffrage -- Fiction
“What difference does it make to me who he belongs to? I don't care if
he belongs to Vanderbilt, or Aster'ses family. Principle--that is what I
am a workin' on; and the same principle that would hender me from buyin'
a feller that was poor as a snail, would hender me from buyin' one that
had the riches of Creshus; it wouldn't make a mite of difference to me.
“As the poet Mr. Burns says,--I have heard Thomas J. repeat it time and
agin, and I always liked it: I may not get the words exactly right, but
the meanin' is,--
“Rank is only the E pluribus Unum stamp, on the trade dollar: a feller
is a feller for all that.”
But I'll be hanged if he didn't, after all my expenditure of wind and
eloquence, and quotin' poetry, and every thing--if he didn't turn round
at the foot of that doorstep, and strikin' that same patient, determined
attitude of hisen, say, says he,--
[Illustration: “CAN'T I SELL YOU A FELLER?”]
“You are mistaken, mom. I merely stopped this mornin' to see if I could
sell you”--
But I jest shet the door in his face, and went off upstairs into the
west chamber, and went to windin' bobbin's for my carpet. And I don't
know how long he stayed there, nor don't care. He had gone when I come
down to get dinner, and that was all I cared for.
I told Josiah about it when he and the boy come home; and I tell you,
my eyes fairly snapped, I was that mad and rousted up about it: but he
said,--
“He believed it was a sewin'-machine man, and wanted to sell me a feller
for my sewin'-machine. He said he had heard there was a general agent in
Jonesville that was a sendin' out agents with all sorts of attachments,
some with hemmers, and some with fellers.”
But I didn't believe a word of it: I believe he was _mean_. A mean,
low-lived, insultin' creeter.
CHAPTER XIV.
Wall, Cicely died in June; and how the days will pass by, whether we are
joyful or sorrowful! And before we knew it (as it were), September
had stepped down old Time's dusty track, and appeared before us, and
curchied to us (allegory).
Ah, yes! time passes by swiftly. As the poet observes, In youth the days
pass slowly, in middle life they trot, and in old age they canter.
But the time, though goin' fast, had passed by very quietly and
peacefully to Josiah Allen and me.
Every thing on the farm wus prosperous. The children was well and happy;
the babe beautiful, and growin' more lovely every day.
Ury had took his money, and bought a good little house and 4 acres of
land in our neighborhood, and had took our farm for the next and ensuin'
year. And they was happy and contented. And had expectations. They had
(under my direction) took a tower together, and the memory of her lonely
pilgrimage had seemed to pass from Philury's mind.
The boy wus a gettin' healthier all the time. And he behaved better and
better, most all the time. I had limited him down to not ask over
50 questions on one subject, or from 50 to 60; and so we got along
first-rate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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