Samantha at Saratoga by Marietta Holley (e book reader pc .TXT) š
- Author: Marietta Holley
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And so she braced herself against the sweet influence of love and it wuz tuffāI could see for myself that it wuz, when she had laid out to set on a throne by the side of a prince, he a holdinā his fatherās scepter in his handāto descend from that elevation and wed a husband who wuz a moulder of bread, with a rollinā pin in his hand. It wuz tuff for Ardelia; I could see right through her mind (it wuznāt a great distance to see), and I could see jest how a conflict wuz a goinā on between love and ambition.
But Abram had my best wishes, for he wuz a boy I had always liked. The Gees had lived neighbor to us for years. He wuz a good creeter and his bread wuz delicious (milk emptinās). He wuz a sort of a hard, sound lookinā chap, and she, beinā so oncommon soft, the contrast kinder sot each other off and made āem look well together.
He had a house and lot all paid for, with no incumbrances only a mortgage of 150 dollars and a lame mother. But he laid out to clear off the mortgage this year, and I wuz told that mother Gee wuz a goinā to live with her daughter Susan, who had jest come into a big propertyāas much as 700 dollars worth of land, besides cows, 2 heads of cow, and one head of a calf.
I knew Mother Gee and she wuz goinā to stay with Abram till he got married and then she wuz goinā to live with Susan. And I sāpose it is so. She is a likely old woman with a milk leg.
Wall, Abram paid Ardelia lots of attention, sech as walkinā home with her from protracted meetinās nights, and lookinā at her durinā the meetinās more protracted than the meetinās wuz fur. And 3 times he sent her a plate of riz biscuit sweetened, sweetened too sweet almost, he went too fur in this and I see it.
Yes, he done his part as well as his condition would let him, paralyzed by his feelināsābut she acted kinder offish, and I see that sonthinā wuz in the way. I mistrusted at first, it might be Abramās incumbrance, but durinā a conversation I had with her, I see I wuz in the wrong onāt. And I could see plain, though some couldnāt, that she liked Abram as she did her eyes. Somebody run him down a little one day before me and she sprouted right up and took his part voyalent. I could see her feelinās towards him though she wouldnāt own up to āem. But one day she came out plain to me and lamented his condition in life. Somebody had attact her that day before me about marryinā of himāand she owned up to me, that she had laid out to marry somebody to elevate her. Some one with a grand pure mission in life.
And I spoke right up and sez, āWhy bread is jest as pure and innocent as anything can be, you wonāt find anything wicked about good yeast bread, nor,ā sez I, cordially, āin milk risinā, if it is made proper.ā
But she said she preferred a occupation that wuz risinā, and noble, and that made a man necessary and helpful to the masses.
And I sez agināāGood land! the masses have got to eat. And I guess you starve the masses a spell and theyāll think that good bread is as necessary and helpful to āem as anything can be. And as fer its beinā a risinā occupation, why,ā sez I, āit is stiddy risenāārisinā in the mornin,ā and risinā at night, and all night, both hop and milk emptinās. Why,ā sez I, āI never see a occupation so risinā as hisān is, both milk and hop.ā But she wouldnāt seem to give in and encourage him much only by spells.
And then Abram didnāt take the right way with her. I see he wuz a goinā just the wrong way to win a womanās love. For his love, his great honest love for her made him abject, he groveled at her feet, loved to grovel.
I told him, for he confided in me from the first onāt and bewailed her coldness to me, I told him to sprout up and act as if he had some will of his own and some independent life of his own. Sez I, āAny woman that sees a man a layinā around under her feet will be tempted to step on him,ā sez I. āI donāt see how she can help it, if she calcerlates to get round any, and walk.ā Sez I, āSprout up and be somebody. She is a good little creeter, but no better than you are, Abram; be a man.ā
And he would try to be. I could see him try. But one of her soft little glances, specially if it wuz kind and tender to him, es it wuz a good deal of the time, why it would just overthrow him agāin. He would collapse and become nothinā agāin, before her. Why I have hearn him sing that old him, a lookinā right at Ardelia stiddy:
āOh to be nothinā, nothinā!ā
And thinks I to myself, āif this keeps on, you are in a fairway to git your wish.ā
He wuz a good singer, a beartone, and she a secent. They loved to sing together. They needed some air, but then they got along without it; and it sounded quite well, though rather low and deep.
Wall, it run along for weeks and weeks, he with his hopes a risinā up sometimes like his yeast and then beinā pounded down agāin like his bread, under the hard knuckles of a womanās capricious cruelty. For I must say that she did, for sech a soft littte creeter, have cold and cruel ways to Abram. (But I sāpose it wuz when she got to thinkinā about the Prince, or some other genteel lover.)
But her real feelinās would break out once in a while, and lift him up to the 3d heaven of happiness and then heād have to totter and fall down agāin. Abram Gee had a hard time onāt. I pitied him from nearly the bottom of my heart. But I still kepā a thinkinā it would turn out well in the end. For it wuz jest about this time that I happened to find this poetry in a book where she had, I sāposed, left it. And I read āem, almost entirely unbeknown to myself.
It wuz wrote in a dreatful blind way but I recognized it at once. I looked right through it, and see what she wuz a writinā about though many wouldnāt, it wuz wrote in sech a deep style.
āSTANZAS ON BREAD;
ā or
ā A LAY OF A BROKEN HEART.
āOh Bread, dear Bread, that seemest to us so cold,
Oftātimes concealed thee within, may be a sting!
Sweet buried hopes may in thy crust be rolled;
A sad, burnt crust of deepest suffering.
āThere are some griefs the female soul donāt tell,
And she may weep, and she may wretched be;
Though she may like the name of Abram well
And she may not like dislike the name of G-,
āOh Fel Ambition, how thou lurest us on,
How by thy high, bold torch weāre stridinā led:
Thou lurest us up, cold mountain top upon,
And seated by us there, thou scoffest at bread.
āThou lookest down, Ambition, on the ovens brim;
Thou brookest not a word of him save with contumalee:
And yet, wert thou afar, how sweet to set by him
And cut low slices of sweet joy with Gā,
āOh! Fel Ambition, wert but thou away,
Could we thy hauntinā form no more, nor see;
How sweet ātwould be to linger on with Aā,
How sweet ātwould be to dwell for aye with Gā.ā
Wall, as I say, she gin good satisfaction in the deestrict and I declare for it, I got to likinā her dretful well before the winter wuz over. Softer she wuz, and had to be, than any fuz that was ever on any cotton flannel fur or near. And more verses she wrote than wuz good for her, or for anybody else,āWhy she would write āLines on the Tongs,ā or āStanzas on the Salt Suller,ā if she couldnāt do any better; it beats all! And then she would read āem to me to get my idees on āem. Why I had to call on every martyr in the hull string of martyrs sometimes to keep myself from tellinā her my full mind about āem unbeknown to me. For, if I had, it would have skairt the soft little creeter out of what little wit she had.
So I kepā middlinā still, and see it go on. For she wuz a good little soul, affectionate and kinder helpful. A good creeter now to find your speks. Why she found āem for me times out of number, and I got real attached to her and visey versey. And when she came a visitinā me in the spring (at my request), and I happened to mention that Josiah and me laid out to go to Saratoga for the summer, what did the soft little creeter want to do but to go too. Her father was well off and wuz able to send her, and she had relatives there on her own side, some of the Pixleys, so her board wouldnāt cost nothinā. So it didnāt look nothinā unreasonable, though whether I could get her there and back without her mashinā all down on my hands, like a over ripe peach, she wuz that soft, wuz a question that hanted me, and so I told Josiah.
But Josiah kinder likes young girls (nothinā light; a calm meetinā-house affection), it is kinder nater that he should, and he sez: āBetter let her go, she wonāt make much trouble.ā
āNo,ā sez I, ānot to you, but if you had to set for hours and hours and hear her verses read to you on every subjectāon heaven, and earth, and the seas, and see her a measurinā of it with a stick to get the lines the right length; if you had to go through all this, mebby you would meditate on the subject before you took it for a summerās job.ā
ā Wall,ā sez he, āmebby she wonāt write so much when she gets started; she will be kinder jogged round and stirred up in body and mebby her feelinsā will kinder rest. I shouldnāt wonder a mite if they did,ā sez he. āAnd then she can take a good many steps for you, and I love to see you favored,ā sez he.
He wanted her to go, I see that, and I see that it wuz natur that he should, and so I consented in my mindāafter a parlay.
She found his specks a sight and his hat. Nothinā seemed to please her better than to be gropinā round after things to please somebody; her disposition wuz such. So it wuz settled that she should accompany and go with us. And the morninā we started she met us at the Jonesville Depot in good sperits and a barege delaine dress, cream color, and a hat of the same.
I hadnāt seen her for some weeks, and she seemed softly tickled to see Josiah and me, and asked a good many questions about Jonesville, kinder turninā the conversation gradually round onto bread, as I could see. So I branched right out, knowinā what she wanted of me, and told her plain, that āAbram Gee wuz a lookinā kinder mauger. But doinā his duty stiddy,ā sez I, lookinā keenly at her, āa doinā his duty by everybody, and beloved by everybody, him and his bread too.ā
She turned her head away and kinder sithed, and I guess it wuz as much as a quarter of a hour after that,
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