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nigh as he could make out we all got into the waterinā€™ trough and wuz watered.

The school teacher, a young man, with long, small lims, and some pimpley on the face, but well meaninā€™, he sez to me: ā€œSaratoga is a beautiful spah.ā€

And I sez warmly, ā€œIt aint no such thing, it is a village, for I have seen a peddler who went right through it, and watered his horses there, and he sez it is a waterinā€™ place, and a village.ā€

ā€œYes,ā€ sez he, ā€œit is a beautiful village, a modest retiren city, and at the same time it is the most noted spah on this continent.ā€

I wouldnā€™t contend with him for it wuz on the stoop of the meetinā€™ house, and I believe in beinā€™ reverent. But I knew it wuznā€™t no ā€œspah,ā€ā€”that had a dreadful flat sound to me. And any way I knew I should face its realities soon and know all about it. Lots of wimen said that for anybody who lived right on the side of a canal, and had two good, cisterns on the place, and a well, they didnā€™t see why I should feel in a sufferinā€™ condition for any more water; and if I did, why didnā€™t I ketch rain water?

Such wuz some of the deep arguments they brung up aginst my embarkinā€™ on this enterprise, they talked about it sights and sights;ā€”why, it lasted the neighbors for a stiddy conversation, till along about the middle of the winter. Then the Ministerā€™s wife bought a new alpacky dressā€”unbeknown to the church till it wuz made upā€”and that kind oā€™ drawed their minds off oā€™ me for a spell.

Aunt Polly Pixley wuz the only one who received the intelligence gladly. And she thought she would go too. She had been kinder run down and most bed rid for years. And she had a idee the water might help her. And I encouraged Aunt Polly in the idee, for she wuz well off. Yes, Mr. and Miss Pixley wuz very well off though they lived in a little mite of a dark, low, lonesome house, with some tall Pollard willows in front of the door in a row, and jest acrost the road from a grave-yard.

Her husband had been close and wuznā€™t willinā€™ to have any other luxury or means of recreation in the house only a bass viol, that had been his fatherā€™sā€”he used to play on that for hours and hours. I thought that wuz one reason why Polly wuz so nervous. I said to Josiah that it would have killed me outright to have that low grumblinā€™ a goinā€™ on from day to day, and to look at them tall lonesome willows and grave stuns.

But, howsumever, Pollyā€™s husband had died durinā€™ the summer, and Polly parted with the bass viol the day after the funeral. She got out some now, and wuz quite wrought up with the idee of goinā€™ to Saratoga.

But Sister Minkley; sister in the church and sister-in-law by reason of Wbitefield, sez to me, that she should think I would think twice before I danced and waltzed round waltzes.

And I sez, ā€œI haint thought of doinā€™ it, I haint thought of dancinā€™ round or square or any other shape.ā€

Sez she, ā€œYou have got to, if you go to Saratoga.ā€

Sez I, ā€œNot while life remains in this frame.ā€

And old Miss Bobbet came up that minuteā€”it wuz in the store that we were a talkinā€™ā€”and sez she, ā€œIt seems to me, Josiah Allenā€™s wife, that you are too old to wear low-necked dresses and short sleeves.ā€

ā€œAnd I should think youā€™d take cold a goinā€™ bareheaded,ā€ sez Miss Luman Spink who wuz with her.

Sez I, lookinā€™ at ā€™em coldly, ā€œAre you lunys or has softness begun on your brains?ā€

ā€œWhy,ā€ sez they, ā€œyou are talking about goinā€™ to Saratoga, hainā€™t you?ā€

ā€œYes,ā€ sez I.

ā€œWell then you have got to wear ā€™em,ā€ says Miss Bobbet. ā€œThey donā€™t let anybody inside of the incorporation without they have got on a low-necked dress and short sleeves.ā€

ā€œAnd bare-headed,ā€ sez Miss Spink; ā€œif they haveā€™ got a thing on their heads they wonā€™t let ā€™em in.ā€

Sez I, ā€œI donā€™t believe itā€

Sez Miss Bobbet, ā€œIt is so, for I hearn it, and hearn it straight. James Robbetsā€™s wifeā€™s sister had a second cousin who lived neighbor to a woman whose niece had been there, been right there on the spot. And Celestine Bobbet, Uncle Ephraimā€™s Celestine, hearn it from Jamesā€™es wife when she wuz up there last spring, it come straight. They all have to go in low necks.ā€

ā€œAnd not a mite of anything on their heads,ā€ says Miss Spink.

Sez I in sarcastical axents, ā€œDo men have to go in low necks too?ā€

ā€œNo,ā€ says Miss Bobbet. ā€œBut they have to have the tails of their coats kinder pinted. Why,ā€ sez she, ā€œI hearn of a man that had got clear to the incorporation and they wouldnā€™t let him in because his coat kinder rounded off round the bottom, so he went out by the side of the road and pinned up his coat tails, into a sort of a pinted shape, and good land the incorporation let him right in, and never said a word.ā€

I contended that these things wuznā€™t so, but I found it wuz the prevailinā€™ opinion. For when I went to see the dressmaker about makinā€™ me a dress for the occasion, I see she felt just like the rest about it. My dress wuz a good black alpacky. I thought I would have it begun along in the edge of the winter, when she didnā€™t have so much to do, and also to have it done on time. We laid out to start on the follerinā€™ July, and I felt that I wanted everything ready.

I bought the dress the 7th day of November early in the forenoon, the next day after my pardner consented to go, and give 65 cents a yard for it, double wedth. I thought I could get it done on time, dressmakers are drove a good deal. But I felt that a dressmaker could commence a dress in November and get it done the follerinā€™ July, without no great strain beinā€™ put onto her; and I am fur from beinā€™ the one to put strains onto wimmen, and hurry ā€™em beyend their strength. But I felt Almily had time to make it on honor and with good buttonholes.

ā€œWell,ā€ she sez, the first thing after she had unrolled the alpacky, and held it up to the light to see if it was firmā€”sez she:

ā€œI sā€™pose you are goinā€™ to have it made with a long train, and low neck and short sleeves, and the waist all girted down to a taper?ā€

I wuz agast at the idee, and to think Alminy should broach it to me, and I give her a piece of my mind that must have lasted her for days and days. It wuz a long piece, and firm as iron. But she is a woman who likes to have the last word and carry out her own idees, and she insisted that nobody was allowed in Saratogaā€”that they wuz outlawed, and laughed at if they didnā€™t have trains and low necks, and little mites of waists no bigger than pipe-stems.

Sez I, ā€œAlminy Hagidone, do you sā€™pose that I, a woman of my age, and a member of the meetinā€™ house, am a goinā€™ to wear a low-necked dress?ā€

ā€œWhy not?,ā€ sez she, ā€œit is all the fashion and wimmen as old agin as you be wear ā€™em.ā€

Well, sez I, ā€œIt is a shame and a disgrace if they do, to say nothinā€™ of the wickedness of it. Who do you sā€™pose wants to see their old skin and bones? It haint nothinā€™ pretty anyway. And as fer the waists beinā€™ all girted up and drawed in, that is nothinā€™ but crushed bones and flesh and vitals, that is just crowdinā€™ down your insides into a state oā€™ disease and deformity, torturinā€™ your heart down soā€™s the blood canā€™t circulate, and your lungs soā€™s you canā€™t breathe, it is nothinā€™ but slow murder anyway, and if I ever take it into my head to kill myself, Alminy Hagidone, I haint a goinā€™ to do it in a way of perfect torture and torment to me, Iā€™d ruther be drownded.ā€

She quailed, and I sez, ā€œI am one that is goinā€™ to take good long breaths to the very last.ā€ She see I wuz like iron aginst the idee of beinā€™ drawed in, and tapered, and she desisted. I sā€™pose I did look skairful. But she seemed still to cling to the idee of low necks and trains, and she sez sort a rebukingly:

ā€œYou ortnā€™t to go to Saratoga if you haint willinā€™ to do as the rest do. I spose,ā€ sez she dreamily, ā€œthe streets are full of wimmen a walkinā€™ up and down with long trains a hanginā€™ down and sweepinā€™ the streets, and evā€™ry one on ā€™em with low necks and short sleeves, and all on ā€™em a flirting with some manā€

ā€œTruly,ā€ sez I, ā€œif that is so, that is why the idee come to me. I am needed there. I have a high mission to perform about. But I donā€™t believe it is so.ā€

ā€œThen you wonā€™t have it made with a long train?ā€ sez she, a holdinā€™ up a breadth of the alpacky in front of me, to measure the skirt.

ā€œNo mom!ā€ sez I, and there wuz both dignity and deep resolve in that ā€œmom.ā€ It wuz as firm and stern principled a ā€œmomā€ as I ever see, though I say it that shouldnā€™t. And I see it skairt her. She measured off the breadths kinder trembly, and seemed so anxious to pacify me that she got it a leetle shorter in the back than it wuz in the front. And (for the same reason) it fairly clicked me in the neck it wuz so high, and the sleeves wuz that long that I told Josiah Allen (in confidence) I was tempted to knit some loops across the bottom of ā€™em and wear ā€™em for mits.

But I didnā€™t, and I didnā€™t change the dress neither. Thinkses I, mebby it will have a good moral effect on them other old wimmen there. Thinkses I, when they see another woman melted and shortened and choked fur principleā€™s sake, mebby they will pause in their wild careers.

Wall, this wuz in November, and I wuz to have the dress, if it wuz a possible thing, by the middle of April, soā€™s to get it home in time to sew some lace in the neck. And so havinā€™ everything settled about goinā€™ I wuz calm in my frame most all the time, and so wuz my pardner.

And right here, let me insert this one word of wisdom for the special comfort of my sect and yet it is one that may well be laid to heart by the more opposite one. If your pardner gets restless and oneasy and middlinā€™ cross, as pardners will be anon, or even oftenerā€”start them off on a tower. A tower will in 9 cases out of 10 lift ā€™em out of their oneasiness, their restlessness and their crossness.

Why this is so I cannot tell, no more than I can explain other mysteries of creation, but I know it is so. I know they will come home more placider, more serener, and more settled-downer. Why I have known a short tower to Slab City or Loontown act like a charm on my pardner, when crossness wuz in his mean and snappishness wuz present with him. I have known him to set off with the mean of a lion and come back with the liniment of a lamb. Curious, haint it?

And jest the prospect of a tower ahead is a great help to a woman in rulinā€™ and keepinā€™ a pardner straight and right in his liniments and his acts. Somehow jest the thought of a tower sort a lifts him up in mind, and happifys him, and makes him easier to quell, and pardners must be quelled at times, else there would be no livinā€™ with ā€™em. This is known to all wimmen companions and and men too. Great great is the mystery of pardners.

Chapter II.
ARDELLA TUTT AND HER MOTHER.

But to resoom and continue on. I was a settinā€™ one day, after it wuz all decided, and plans laid on; I wuz a settinā€™ by the fire a mendinā€™ one of Josiahā€™s socks. I wuz a settinā€™ there, as soft and pliable in my temper as the woosted I wuz a darninā€™ ā€™em with, my

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