My son, Thomas Jefferson, and his wife, Maggie, have got a little daughter, it wuz very pleasin’ to Josiah and me, and weighed over nine pounds. It is now most ten months old, and is, with the exception of my other grandchildren, the most beautiful child that wuz ever seen in Jonesville, some foolish folks would think I wuz prejudiced in its favor, but it is the prevailin’ opinion all over Jonesville, it has been talked to Thomas Jefferson and Maggie and Josiah and me repeatedly, so we have got to believe it, for what we know ourselves and the neighbors know to be a fact must be so.
Its name is Snow, after the little one that went home and left them. You know Maggie’s name wuz Snow, she is Maggie Snow that wuz, and I wuz in favor of the child bein’ named after her, in fact, as it may be remembered, I named the child, it wuz left to me.
“Mother,” sez Thomas J., the first time I went there after the first little Snow came and I see the baby layin’ on Maggie’s arm:
“Mother,” sez he, and, though there wuz a smile on his lips, there wuz tears in his voice as he said it, “nobody else shall name my little girl but you.”
“No,” spoke out my daughter, Maggie, smilin’ sweet from her pillow, “you must name it, Mother.”
The children like me, nobody can dispute that, not even my worst enemy, if I had one, but then nobody would believe him, anyway, for he would be a perfect liar. But, as I wuz sayin’, I looked down on ’em, Maggie’s face looked white and sweet out of the muslins and laces round her, the bed wuz white as snow, and so wuz she, and the baby wuz white. And Maggie’s soul wuz white, I knew, white as snow, and so wuz Thomas Jefferson’s, his morals are sound, extremely sound and light colored, and the baby’s, God bless it! I knew wuz like the newly driven snow fallin’ down onto the peaceful earth that blessed day, and so, sez I kinder soft:
“We’ll call the baby Snow.”
And I bent down and kissed Maggie, and Thomas Jefferson kissed us both, and the thing wuz done, their little girl wuz named Snow. And I said, “Try to bring her up so’s the name will be appropriate to her.”
And they both on ’em said they would, and they did. Oh, what a beautiful child that wuz, but it melted away like its namesake in a April day, drawn up to its native heaven by the warm sun of God’s love, and when this baby come to fill its place I wanted it called Snow, and they all did, and that’s its name, she is a very beautiful child, and they are bringin’ her up beautiful. Her behavior for a child ten months of age is the most exemplary I ever see (with the exception of my other grandchildren), it is a perfect pattern to other children to see that child behave.
I despise now, and always have despised, the idee of grandparents bein’ so took up with their grandchildren that they can’t see their faults, it is dretful to witness such folly. But, as I have said to Josiah and to others, “What are you goin’ to do when there hain’t any faults to see? How be you a-goin’ to see ’em?” Why, there hain’t any reason in tryin’ to see things that hain’t there. If Delight and Snow and my other grandchildren ever have any faults I shall be the first one to see ’em, the very first one, and so I have told Josiah and the neighbors.
This little Snow is very white complected, and her eyes are jest the softened shade of the deep velvet blue of the pansy, and her hair is kinder yellowish, and curls in loose rings and waves all over her head, all round her white forward and satin smooth neck. She has got the same sweet smile on her lips that her Ma has, and little angel Snow had, but the look in her eyes, though they hain’t the same color, is like my boy, Thomas Jefferson’s, they look kinder cunning and cute some of the time jest like his, and then deep and tender jest like hisen. Thomas Jefferson is deep, it has been gin up that he is, it is known now all over Jonesville and out as fur as Loontown and all the other adjacent villages, that Thomas J. is deep.
I knew it when he wuz a child, I found it out first, but now everybody knows it, why the bizness that boy gits is perfectly oncommon, folks bring their lawsuits to him from as fur as way beyend Toad Holler and the old State Road, and all round Zoar, and Loontown, and Jonesville, why milds and milds they’ll fetch ’em ruther than have anybody else, and the land is perfectly full of lawyers, too, painfully full. He and Tom Willis, his confidential clerk, have more than they can do all the time, they have to employ one or two boys, they are makin’ money fast.
Well, I spozed that seein’ Thomas J. wuz doin’ so well, and Maggie’s father havin’ left her a handsome property of her own (the Judge died of quinsy, lamented some years ago), I spozed, seein’ she wuz abundantly able and its bein’ so fashionable, that Maggie would have a nurse for her little girl. But the day the child wuz a month old I spent the day with ’em, and Maggie told me she wuzn’t goin’ to. She looked kinder delicate as she sot there holdin’ little Snow, her cheeks wuz about as white as the dress she had on, and I sez, “It is goin’ to be quite a care for you, daughter.”
“Care!” And as she looked up in my face I wuz most struck with the look in her big eyes, it wuz a look of such tenderness, such rapture, such anxiety, such wonder, and most everything else; I declare for it I never see such a look in my life unless it wuz in the face of the Madonna hangin’ right up over her head. Thomas J. bought it and gin it to her a few months before, and it hung right at the foot of her bed. The Virgin mother and her child.
It wuz a beautiful face, Thomas J. thought it favored Maggie, and I don’t know but it did, it did jest that minute, anyway, she had the same look in her eyes that Mary had. Well, if you’ll believe it right while we wuz talkin’ about that baby, Miss Green Smythe come in to see Thomas Jefferson, she is tryin’ to git some divorces, and she wants Thomas J. to undertake the job, she is dretful good to Maggie and flatters Thomas Jefferson up, but Thomas J. won’t take the case, unless he sees he is on the right side.
Thomas Jefferson Allen has took his Ma’s advice; he has never, never took holt of a case that he didn’t think honestly and firmly he wuz on the right side on’t. He has got the name of bein’ a honest lawyer, and they say folks come milds and milds jest to look on him, they consider him such a curosity. That’s jest why he gits so much custom, folks would ruther see him than a circus, he bein’ such a rariety, and then when they see him they like him, they can’t help it, and so he gits their custom.
I told Thomas J. when he wuz young to do right for the right’s sake, sez I, “Thomas J., I despise that old proverb, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ I don’t want you to do anything out of policy,” sez I, “do right for the right’s sake, for the sake of God’s truth and your own soul. You can’t like yourself, nor God can’t like you if you do a mean, shabby, contemptible act. Do jest as near right as you can, Thomas Jefferson Allen, and leave success or failure with Him who sees into your soul and your future clear to the end, if there is a end, which I don’t spoze there is. You had better be a failure outside than inside.” Sez I, “Let the one who can see inside of you look down into a clean soul, and even if you are covered with rags outside your Ma will be satisfied.”
So I would say to Thomas J. from day to day and from year to year in his school days. And when he went into the law, sez I, “Thomas Jefferson, it may be my lot to see you torn by wild horses and layin’ on a guillontine, but,” sez I, “though that would kill your Ma, it would kill her quicker to see and hear that you had got up in cold blood and wuz tryin’ to prove that a lie wuz the truth, and that the truth wuz a lie, usin’ all the intellect and power the God of truth give to prove a untruth, to go against Him, against your conscience, against your soul.”
Sez I, “Cases can be plastered over with all the thick plaster you can lay on ’em about duty to clients, expediency, etc., etc. But if a man is guilty he ort to be punished, and if he is innocent he hadn’t ort to be punished, and if you ever take the part of the guilty against the innocent, if you git up under God’s pure daylight and try to prove that the innocent is guilty, try and prove a lie, your Ma will not live long to see it go on,” sez I, “for mortification would set in powerful and so deep that it will soon end her days.”
Thomas Jefferson hearn to me, he wuz a honest boy by nature, and my teachin’s have struck in deep. He is a honest lawyer, and as I say folks come milds and milds jest to look at him. As it has turned out he is a success outside as well as inside.
And Miss Green Smythe wants him to take her case dretfully. Good land! she’s been in the law for years, her children have turned out real bad, and she’s turned out sort o’ curous herself. She is a great society woman, and has enormous success in that direction; why, she has been, so I have been told and believe, to nineteen parties in one night, she gives immense receptions, and has got diamonds as big as eggs almost (bird’s eggs, I cannot lie, I do not mean hen’s eggs). Yes, she has had great success in that way, but she has had dretful poor luck with her children.
She has got a husband somewhere, I spoze. I believe that I hearn once of somebody who had seen Mr. Green Smythe one day settin’ on the back doorstep of her city house. But she always has two or three young men danglin’ round, and she never sez a word about her husband. Somebody said to me one day that it seemed kinder queer that nobody ever see Mr. Smythe, but I sez:
“Oh, she most probable knew where he wuz; she most probable knew that he wuz settin’ out there at the back door.”
I will stand up for my sect when I can, but I don’t approve of her acts not at all; if I had a husband I should want one, and if I didn’t have a husband I shouldn’t want one, and I should want it fixed so I should know jest how it wuz.
But as I say, her children have turned out dretful, and most everybody thinks that it wuz the way they wuz brung up that made ’em turn out so. She left the hull care of ’em to hired nurses and servants, and they wuz mean, some of ’em, and neglected ’em sometimes, and sometimes learnt ’em by precept and example to be as mean as they wuz.
Why, a woman told me, and a likely woman, too, though I won’t mention any names, as I am afraid she wouldn’t like it if I did, but I will say that I always could depend on every word that Alvira Sampson said.
Well, she told me she called Miss Green Smythe’s attention to the way her children wuz bein’ dealt with by her help, and she said all the answer Miss Green Smythe made wuz to look kinder dreamily at her and wonder whether she had better have yellow or pink candles in her reception room at her next party; she wuz gittin’ up a Charity Ball for motherless children. And I told Alviry that Miss Green Smythe had better include her own children in the charity, for they wuz jest about the same as motherless.
And this certain woman said she tried to draw her attention agin to the needs of her own offspring, and agin Miss Green Smythe looked dreamily up and sez, “I am so ondecided whether to wear pale rose colored chiffon or cloth of gold on the night of the party.” And then that certain woman said she gin up the idee of gittin’ her mind onto her own children’s welfare, she didn’t say another word to her about it, and I believe her, for Alvira won’t lie.
So Miss Green Smythe wuz left with a anxious contemplation of the color of the light that wuz goin’ to softly gild the heads of her guests as they talked of the cruel needs of the motherless, and, bein’ took up with this, she hadn’t time to worry about the evil glare of vile and corrupt words and ways, deceit and lies, and worse, that wuz fallin’ on the heads of her own children.
But to resoom forwards agin. Maggie and I wuz settin’ there calm and peaceful, and saw the colored nigger’s countenance lookin’ round dretful clever from his high seat.
Miss Green Smythe swep’ up the neat gravel walk to the door, and in a few minutes entered the room. She is a kinder good natured little woman, but dretful wore out and haggard lookin’ under the embellishments she uses to cover up the ravages of time and care and fashionable ambition and worry. She always dresses in the very height of fashion, but she has too many feathers and flowers and danglin’ ends of ribbon to suit me.
I never took any fancy to her, though I spoze I ort to feel complimented on her comin’ clear from New York to git Thomas Jefferson to try her lawsuit. Her present husband is a distant, a very distant, relation of ourn. But I don’t spoze that makes any difference about her employin’ Thomas J., I spoze it is his smartness that draws her. She is spendin’ the summer at a summer hotel not fur off, she and her family, and she is tryin’ to git some divorces for herself and one of her children. She don’t want a divorce from Smith, Mr. Green Smythe gives her rope enough. I guess she feels pretty foot loose, ’tennyrate nobody ever sees him, though they know there is a husband somewhere in the background grubbin’ away to make money. They say he is a sad and humble sperited man, who sets a good deal on their back doorstep at Newport and New York, when he sets anywhere, a modest, bald headed man, with iron gray mustache and sad eyes. They say he don’t seem at home in the palatial front rooms and boodoors, and is kinder trompled on by the high headed servants in livery. But he, knowin’, I spoze, that he could turn ’em all out, neck and crop and leathered legs, if he wanted to, bears it pretty well, and sets out there and reads the daily papers. And sometimes I have hearn holds an old degariotype in his hand, and will look at it a long time, of a pretty young country girl that he loved when he wuz young and poor, and prized ambition and wealth a good deal more than he duz now. They say he looks at that a sight, and some letters writ by “Alice” and some little sprigs of old fashioned runnin’ myrtle that has opened its blue flowers for many summers over a grave on a country hillside.
They commenced to bloom about a year after he married the rich widder Green, whose money put with his made him rich as a Jew. She had three husbands, Miss Green Smythe had, before she married Smith; Smith then but Smythe now. Her first husband, Sam Warn, he don’t count much in her thoughts, so I’ve hearn, bein’ young and poor, and havin’ married him for love, so called, and he her. He died in a few years, died from overwork, everybody said. He wuz tryin’ to work over hours to pay for a melodeon for his wife and a pair of bracelets; she wuz ambitious then in her young and poor days, ambitious as a dog. He died leavin’ her nothin’ but the twins, Eudora Francesca and Medora Francina.
Her next husband wuz old Green, he wuz goin’ on eighty when she married him, and he died in less than a year, leavin’ her with over two millions. Her next husband, Emery Tweedle, father of Algernon and Angenora, wuz much younger than herself, and I didn’t wonder at that so much as some did, thinkin’ that she wanted to sort o’ even up the ages of her pardners, and he wuzn’t nigh as much younger than her as Green wuz older, and I always believed (theoretically) that sass for the goose and sass for the gander might as well be about the same age.
Howsumever, they didn’t live happy, he throwin’ her downstairs the third year of their union and throwin’ a cut glass pitcher on top of her. The occasion bein’ that she found him tryin’ to help the pretty parlor maid carry upstairs the pitcher of ice water she had rung for.
She wuz a real pretty parlor maid, and Miss Tweedle by this time, havin’ run so hard after fashion, had got kinder worn out lookin’ and winded in the race, as you may say, with lots of small wrinkles showin’ round the eyes and nose, and real scrawny where her figger wuzn’t veneered and upholstered for company, and the parlor maid had a plump figger, and complexion like strawberries and cream, but wuzn’t considered likely. But ’tennyrate that fall precipitated affairs, and havin’ got up with little Eudora Francesca’s help, Miss Tweedle’s first move wuz to sue for a divorce.
Her back wuz hurt considerable, and so wuz her pride, but her heart not at all, so it wuz spozed, for she married him in the first place, not for love, but because he could sing bass good, she had a high terible voice, and their voices went well together. He wuz poor, and she made the first advances, so they said, bein’ anxious to secure his bass.
And didn’t it turn out queer as a dog that when she married for bass she got such a sight of it, she got more than she bargained for. She had never made any inquiries about him, and found out, when it wuz too late, that his voice wuzn’t the only base thing about him. He wuz real mean and tried to throw her out of the second story winder before they had been married two weeks. That wuz because she wouldn’t deed all her property to him. But she knew enough to hang onto her property, and he, bein’ so poor, hung onto her off and on for a little over two years. They got along somehow, and when she and affairs wuz finally precipitated, they had two children, which the law give to her, about a year and a half old. And about two months after the seperation she had another child, Angelia Genevieve, but she didn’t live only a year or so, havin’ crep’ up and fell into the bathtub, and wuz drowned, her Ma bein’ at a masked ball at the time.
Well, she got a Western divorce and married Mr. Ebenezer Smith, and spozed that the Tweedle eppisode wuz over. But after lettin’ her alone for years, Tweedle, bein’ base clear to his toes, and havin’ run through his property and had reverses, wuz botherin’ Miss Green Smythe, and demandin’ money of her. He said there wuz some legal error in the divorce papers, and he wuz threatenin’ her bad.
Well, she wuz in a hard place and I felt sorry for her. And then her girls had had sights of trouble, too, the two girls, Eudora Francesca and Medora Francina Warn, that wuz their right name, but their Ma thought that Green Smythe sounded fur more genteel, so she called ’em by that name, they have had dretful bad luck. Eudora’s nurse wuz a good faithful creeter (that wuz after her Ma had married old Green, good land! she nussed ’em herself till then). But as I was sayin’, Eudora’s nurse wuz a valuable woman but had one fault; she would drink once in a while, and it wuz when she had one of her drunken fits that she dropped the little girl onto the marble hearth and hurt her spine, she suffered dretful and went to a private hospital the year her Ma wuz in Europe for the fifteenth time, the nurse stayin’ with her and cryin’ over her lots of times, they say, for she had a good heart.
Well, she stayed there for years till she got to be a young woman, while Miss Green Smythe took Medora Francina round with her considerable. She had a great-aunt on her Pa’s side, Karen Happuck Warn, who wuz as rich as Creshus, her husband havin’ made his money in a coal mine discovered on his rocky old farm up in Maine.
Well, this old lady bein’ left without chick or child of her own, what should Miss Green Smythe do but take Medora Francina up there visitin’! And I spoze she done it from pure ambition and wantin’ to advance her child’s interests, she told her aunt that Medora’s name wuz Karen Happuck Warn, and she called her all the time she wuz there Karen Happuck. Well, that tickled the old lady dretfully, and she seemed to like Medora first rate, and her Ma left her there most a year, while she went off, I believe it wuz to Algeria that time, or Cairo or somewhere.
The Warns wuz dretful religious folks, and Medora wuz under better influences that year than she ever wuz before or since, I spoze, and she enjoyed herself first rate, and realized the beauty of a good honest life, of duty and labor and simple pleasures and domestic happiness. She fell in love up there with a handsome young lumberman, Hatevil White, and would have liked to married him, he wuz a distant, a very distant relation to old Miss Warn, though she didn’t have much to do with him then.
Well, they fell in love with each other, and I guess it would made a match, but Miss Green Smythe couldn’t bear to have Medora marry a common Mr. and a lumberman at that, she hankered after a title in her family, so she took her home to New York and there she met her titled man. You know that in one of the big hotels there you can always see a hull row of ’em settin’ in the hall, lookin’ out for rich wives; they write their letters from that hotel and hang round there, but sleep, it is spozed, in some hall bedroom downtown, and eat where they can, but they are real lucky in findin’ pardners, and there Medora found hern. He wuz quite good lookin’, and, owin’ to his title, a great pet amongst the four hundred. Why, they all wanted to marry him, the hull four hundred, or all of ’em that hadn’t got some husbands, mebby three hundred or so. But Medora carried off the prize, her Ma wanted the title in the family, and he wanted Medora’s money; she wuz spozed then, besides her own money, to be the heiress of her aunt.
But he turned out, as so many titled men do that hang round that 400 in New York, to be a imposter. He wuzn’t a Baron, he wuz formerly a valley, or that is what they call it, to a real titled man, and from him he had got the ways of high life, good dressin’, flowery, flattering language, drinkin’, billiard playin’, etc., etc. Well, he spent Medora’s money, and broke her heart, and I believe a few of her bones; he wuz a low brute, and I don’t blame her for wantin’ a divorce.
She left the sham Baron after her bones wuz sot and went up to Maine agin, and some say she made overtoors to that Hatevil White, but he wuz true to his name and wouldn’t marry the fickle creeter who had deceived him once. And then by that time (men’s hearts are so elastic) he had got in love with a pretty young school teacher, and married her the next year after these overtoors, and her aunt, having found out how she wuz deceived in regard to Medora’s name, left her hull property when she died to this distant relation, Hatevil White.
So poor Medora Francina felt that her Ma had ondone her for the second time. She has got a high temper, and her tongue is the worst scourge Miss Green Smythe has to stand, they fight perfectly fearful, so they say. Well, to resoom backwards a spell. About the time Medora wuz married Eudora’s disease seemed to take another form, it kinder went to her head, but she appeared well enough, and could walk round as well as anybody. So, as she wuz very beautiful, the handsomest one in the family, her mother took her home and had teachers and learnt her what she could and made of her. And it wuz the next winter after she went home to live that she ran away with the coachman.
Her mother had to go to Europe agin that winter, ’twas the twenty-fourth time, I believe; but, ’tennyrate, she wuz there. But she left Eudora in the care of a very accomplished and fashionable French governess. Miss Green Smythe didn’t have time to learn much about this governess, she wuz so busy gittin’ her trueso ready for her journey, and in givin’ a big fancy ball before she sailed, so she couldn’t take the time to find out much about this woman, and she wuz dretful romantick and kinder mean, and Eudora wuz completely under her influence.
The governess thought this coachman wuz a Marquiz in disguise, son of a long line of Earls, he said he wuz, when questioned about it. But he wuzn’t no such thing; his Pa wuz in the peanut line on the Bowery. The governess would have gladly married him herself, but she wuz older and kinder humbly, so he proposed to Eudora, and they run away and wuz married. There wuz no need of their runnin’ away, there wuz no one to interfere with ’em, for Mr. Green Smythe out on the back steps wouldn’t have noticed what wuz goin’ on. But the governess thought it would be so much more romantick to depart by midnight sarahuptishusly, so I spoze she helped rig up a rope ladder by which Medora descended to her coachman.
Well, he didn’t use her well, it wuzn’t hereditary in his family to use wimmen well, they generally struck at ’em with their fists, instead of polite tongue abuse when they offended ’em, and take it with her ill usage and the wild clamor her Ma made when she discovered the marriage, the poor awakening wits of Eudora Francesca fled utterly. The coachman wuz bought off with a small sum of ready money, and Eudora wuz taken back to the asylum for good and all.
Well, as I say, the two little Tweedle children, boy and girl, are queer little creeters, they are about eight or nine years old now, and are with their Ma to Jonesville for the summer, with a nurse for each one. The baby, the only child of Mr. Smith, is not with its Ma to Jonesville, he is at another private asylum, not fur from the one that Eudora Francesca is in; it is an asylum for idiots and a sort of school to try to teach ’em what they can be taught.
And that he is there isn’t the fault of any nurse. No, I should say it riz higher in profession and wuz the fault of the medical fraternity. All the year before he wuz born Miss Green Smythe wuz very delicate, but bein’ so fashionable, she considered it necessary to wear a tight, a very tight cosset till the very day the baby wuz born, and her doctor never said a word agin it, so fur as I know, but realizin’ how delicate she wuz and that her strength must be kep’ up in some way, he ordered her to take stimulants, and she drinked, and she drinked, and she drinked. Why, I spoze from what I’ve hearn that she jest took barrels of wine and champagne and brandy. She never went half way in anything, not even Hottentots, of which more hereafter. And the stimulants bein’ ordered she drinked continually. And when the boy wuz born it wuz a perfect idiot. Her fashionable doctor who ordered the stimulants said it wuz a “melancholy dispensation of Providence.”
The doctor who attended Mr. Green Smythe, and an old friend of hisen, said it wuz “a melancholy judgment on fools.” He wuz a quick tempered man, but honest and high learnt, and he wuz mad at the fashionable doctor and Miss Green Smythe, too. Well, it cured her of drinkin’, anyway; she had always wanted a boy dretfully, and when the only one she had ever had wuz born a idiot it mortified her most to death, and she could never bear the sight of it, and had never laid her eyes on it since it wuz took to the private asylum.
A pretty lookin’ child, too, they said it wuz, only not knowin’ anything. They said about this time Ebenezer Smith’s hair changed from iron gray to pretty near white, for he loved the baby, his only child and heir to all his millions. And he kep’ lookin’ and watchin’ for some signs of sense in it for a long time. And the only reason he gin his consent to have it go to the asylum wuz that he didn’t know but they might help it to some spark of reason. He read his old letters more than ever, they said, out on the back steps, and looked more at Alice’s face in the old velvet covered case, and then he would look away from that sweet, fresh face off onto the sky or ocean as the case might be, either in New York or Newport, he would look off for some time and wuz spozed to be thinkin’ of a good many things.
Well, it wuz to get a divorce for Medora and see to her own Tweedle bizness that Miss Green Smythe had come to Jonesville. She had employed a big New York lawyer, but he hadn’t been very successful, and she wanted Thomas J.’s help. Tweedle had once lived in this vicinity for some time, and she wanted Thomas J. to try and collect evidence for her and help her. But he will walk round the subject on every side and look at it sharp before he tackles it.
I spoze it is a great compliment to have such rich folks as the Green Smythes so anxious to secure his services. But that won’t make any difference to our son, he won’t touch it unless he thinks she is in the right on’t. He follers these two old rules that his Ma laid down before him when he first set out to be a lawyer. Sez I, “Always, Thomas Jefferson, foller them two rules, and you will be sure to come out right in the end:
“First rule, ‘Be sure you are in the right on’t,’” then,
“Second rule, ‘Go ahead.’”
As I sez to him impressive, “You will be sure to come out right if you foller them two rules. Mebby you won’t always win your case before earthly judges, though I believe you will be more apt to. But that hain’t the important thing, my son,” I would say, “the important thing is to win your case before the Great Judge that is above all. Why,” sez I, “wouldn’t you ruther win a case before the Supreme Court in Washington, D. C., than before a Jonesville jury?”
And he would say, “Why, yes, of course.”
“Well,” sez I, “wouldn’t you ruther win the case before the Great Judge that sets as high above them Supreme Judges as Heaven is above the earth?”
I tell you them simelys sunk into Thomas J.’s heart; he follers them rules day by day. As I said more formerly, he is inquirin’ round about Miss Green Smythe’s case, and if he makes up his mind that she and Medora are in the right on’t he will help ’em (and thereby ensure her success), and if she hain’t in the right on’t he won’t touch the case with a pair of tongs or leather mittens.
Well, to stop retrospectin’ and resoom backwards a little. Miss Green Smythe greeted me and Maggie with considerable warmth, about as warm as hot dish water, while our greetin’s to her wuzn’t any warmer than new milk. Maggie wuz holdin’ Snow in her arms when Miss Green Smythe wuz ushered in, leadin’ a pug dog by a ribbon, and one of her danglers wuz out in the carriage lookin’ at the house through a eye glass. Miss Green Smythe made a great flutter and excitement in comin’ in, and made a sight of Maggie and me, but we didn’t seem fluttered or excited by her, nor we didn’t make any more of her than we did of any of the neighbors, though we used her well, and she sot down and took her pug into her lap, for Maggie’s cat riz up her back that high at the sight of it that I thought it would break into, and I got up and let her out.
I knew what the call wuz for, it wuz to molify Thomas J. and make him willin’ to take her case in hand. Well, she wuz dretful good to Maggie, over good, I thought; she called her lots of kinder foolish names, “Petteet Ongey,” and “belle amey,” and lots of other trash. Maggie’s name hain’t Amy, nor never wuz.
Maggie took it all in good part and sot there smilin’ and holdin’ little Snow close to her heart. Miss Green Smythe didn’t notice the baby at all, no more than as if it wuz a rag babe. But she begun to talk about a big entertainment she wuz goin’ to have and wanted us to come to, and she called it a real curous name, it sounded some like Fate Sham Peter.
I guess it wuzn’t exactly that, for it sounded so curous to me I sez to her, sez I, “I spoze Peter is all for fashion and outside gildin’ and sham, and that’s how he got his name?” And I sez, “Is Peter any relation of yourn?” And then she explained it out to me as well as she could.
But I sez, “I guess I’ll call it Sham Peter, for that is nigh enough to distinguish it from other Peter’s and other shams, and that is the main thing.”
She acted as if she didn’t like it, and answered my questions kinder short and uppish. I never took to her, for I had hearn all these things I have sot down about her babies and husbands and danglers and everything, and I spozed like as not I should have to give her a piece of my mind before she left; I spozed that I might have to onbeknown to me.
Well, Maggie excused herself from goin’ on account of little Snow, she said she didn’t go out much to evening parties for they took her strength so, and she felt that she needed all her strength to take care of her baby. “Take care of your baby!” Miss Green Smythe fairly screamed out the words, she wuz that horrow struck. “You take care of your baby? Why, my dear Mrs. Allen, I could not have understood you aright, you take care of your baby yourself!”
“Yes,” sez Maggie quietly, “I take most of the care of my child myself, and I intend to do so.”
Miss Green Smythe held up both of her hands in horrow and leaned back in her chair, “Well, that is something I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t heard it myself, that you are goin’ to take care of your own child,” and the idee seemed to upset her so that she hurried off earlier, I believe, than she would otherwise. But before she went she did git me to promise to attend a reception she wuz goin’ to give before long; Maggie said she believed it would do me good to git out and have a little change.