Kentucky -- Fiction; Older women -- Fiction; Widows -- Fiction
"Well, finally, along in the fall, they got married, and settled down
to housekeepin' as happy as you please. Emmeline was a mighty neat,
orderly sort of a gyirl, and she went to work puttin' things to rights
and makin' the house look homelike, and one mornin' she concluded
she'd straighten out Henry's trunk. I've heard her tell about it many
a time. She said Henry had his outside clothes all mixed up and his
neckties and his socks scattered around all through the trunk, and she
was foldin' things and stackin' 'em up together and singin' 'Flow
Gently, Sweet Afton,' and all at once she come across a little silk
shirt. She said for a minute or so she couldn't take it in, and when
she did, she dropped the shirt like it had been a rattlesnake, and she
got so weak and faint she had to sit down on the side o' the bed. She
said she didn't know how long she set there lookin' at the shirt and
thinkin' terrible things about Henry and makin' up her mind what she'd
say and do, when Henry come in from the field. She said she knew she
ought to be cookin' dinner, and she went down in the kitchen and tried
to, but to save her life she couldn't, her hands trembled so, and she
couldn't keep her mind on what she was tryin' to do. So she went back
up-stairs and set down by the trunk and waited. And when Henry come in
and didn't see her in the kitchen and no signs of dinner anywhere, he
come runnin' up-stairs to find her and started to put his arms around
her and kiss her, but she pushed him off with both hands. And says he,
'Why, Emmeline, what on earth's the matter?' And she said she tried to
answer him, but her voice wouldn't come, and she jest p'inted to the
shirt lyin' on the floor.
"At first Henry didn't understand; but he looked at the shirt and he
looked at her face, and then he burst out laughin', and says he,
'Well, that does look pretty bad, sure enough; but I know you've got
too much confidence in me to let a little thing like that worry you';
and he tried to take hold of her hand, but she jerked it away, and by
that time she was so mad at him for laughin' at her that she didn't
find any trouble about talkin', and the madder she got and the more
she talked, the harder Henry laughed, and says he: 'Oh! come now,
Emmeline. You mustn't be so hard on a man. I never loved that woman
like I love you. I never was married to her, and I never wanted to
marry her. Ain't that enough to satisfy you?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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