Samantha at Saratoga by Marietta Holley (e book reader pc .TXT) 📗

He looked down on me and sort a smiled. I s’pose it wuz because I compared myself to a needle, and he sez, “A cambric needle, or a darnin’ needle?”

And I sez, “I wouldn’t laugh in such a time as this, Josiah Allen.” Sez I, “Do jest look over there on the race course.”

And it wuz a thrillin’ seen. It wuz a place big enough for all the horses of our land to run ’round in and from Phario’s horses down to them of the present time. And beautiful broad smooth roads cut in the green velvet of the grass, and horses goin’ ’round jest like lightnin’, with little light buggys hitched to ’em, some like the quiver on sheet lightnin’ (only different shape) and men a drivin’ ’em.

And then there wuz a broad beautiful race course with little clusters of trees and bushes, every little while right in the road, and if you’ll believe it, I don’t s’pose you will, but it is the livin’ truth, when them horses, goin’ jest like a flash of light, with little boys all dressed in gay colors a ridin’ ’em—when them horses came to them trees instid of goin’ ’round ’em, or pushin’ in between ’em, or goin’ back agin, they jumped right over ’em. I don’t spose this will be believed by lots of folks in Jonesville and Loontown, but it is the truth, for I see it with both my eyes. Josiah riz right up in the buggy and cheered jest as the rest of ’em did, entirely unbeknown to himself, so he said, to see it a goin’ on.

Why he got nearly rampant with excitement. And so did I, though I wouldn’t want it known by Tirzah Ann’s husband’s folks and others in Jonesville. They call it “steeple chasin’” so if they should hear on’t, it wouldn’t sound so very wicked any way. I should probable tell ’em if they said too much, “That it wuz a pity if folks couldn’t get interested in a steeple and chase it up.” But between you and me I didn’t see no sign of a steeple, nor meetin’ house nor nuthin’. I s’pose they gin it that name to make it seem more righter to perfessors. I know it wuz a great comfort to me. (But I don’t think they chased a steeple, and Josiah don’t, for we think we should have seen it if they had.)

Wall, as I say, we wuz both dretfully interested, excited, and wrought up, I s’pose I ort to say, when a chap accosted me and says to me sunthin’ about buyin’ a pool. And I shook my head and sez, “No, I don’t want to buy no pool.”

But he kep’ on a talkin’ and a urgin’, and sez, “Won’t you buy a French pool, mom, you can make lots of money out of it.”

“A pool,” sez I in dignified axents, and some stern, for I wuz weary with his importunities. “What do I want a pool for? Don’t you s’pose there’s any pools in Jonesville, and I never thought nothin’ on ’em, I always preferred runnin’ water. But if I wuz a goin’ to buy one, what under the sun do you s’pose I would buy one way off here for, hundreds of miles from Jonesville?”

“I might possibly,” sez I, not wantin’ to hurt his feelin’s and tryin’ to think of some use I could put it tot “ might if you had a good small American pool, that wuz a sellin’ cheap; and I could have it set right in our back yard, clost to the horse barn, why I might possibly try to make a dicker with you for it. I might use it for raisin’ ducks and geese, though I’d rather have a runnin’ stream then. But how under the sun you think I could take a pool home on a tower, how I could pack it, or transport it, or drive it home is a mystery to me.”

Again he sez mechinecally, “Lots of wimmen do get ’em.”

“Wall, some wimmen,” sez I mildly, for I see he wuz a lookin’ at me perfect dumbfoundered. I see I wuz fairly stuntin’ him with my eloquence. “Some wimmen will buy anything if it has a French name to it. But I prefer my own country, land or water. And some wimmen,” sez I, “will buy anything if they can get it cheap, things they don’t need, and would be better off without, from a eliphant down to a magnificent nothin’ to call husband. They’ll buy any worthless and troublesome thing jest to get ’em to goin’. Now such wimmen would jest jump at that pool. But that haint my way. No, I don’t want to purchase your pool.”

Sez he, “You are mistaken, mom!”

“No I haint,” sez I firmly and with decesion. “No I haint. I don’t need no pool. It wouldn’t do me no good to keep it on my hands, and I haint no notion of settin’ up in the pool or pond business, at my age.”

“And then,” sez I reasonably, “the canal runs jest down below our orchard, and if we run short, we could get all the water we wanted from there. And we have got two good cisterns and a well on the place.”

Sez he, “What I mean is, bettin’ on a horse. Do you want to bet on which horse will go the fastest, the black one or the bay one?”

“No,” sez I, “I don’t want to bet.”

But he kep’ on a urgin’ me, and thinkin’ I had disappinted him in sellin’ a pool, or rather pond, I thought it wouldn’t hurt me to kinder gin in to him in this, so I sez mildly, “Bettin’ is sunthin’ I don’t believe in, but seein’ I have disappinted you in sellin’ your water power, I don’t know as it would be wicked to humor you in this and say it to please you. You say the bay horse is the best, so I’ll say for jest this once - There! I’ll bet the bay one will go the best.”

“Where is your money?” sez he. “It is five dollars for a bet. You pay five dollars and you have a chance to get back mebby 100.”

I riz right up in feerful dignity, and the buggy and I sez that one feerful word to him, “Gamblin’!” He sort a quailed. But sez he, “you had better take a five-dollar chance on the bay horse.”