第31章 JOSIAH AND SAMANTHA TAKE A LONG WALK(4)

But as we went up the stairway into our room, perfectly tuckered out, both on us, I sez to him, in weary axents, "That picture wuz cheap enough, for the money, wuzn't it?"He groaned aloud.And sech is my love for that man, that the minute I heard that groan I immegetly added, "Though I hadn't no idee of buyin' it, Josiah."Immegetly he smiled warmly, and wuz very affectionate in his demeener to me for as much as two hours and a half.Sech is the might of human love.

His hurryin' me over them swelterin' and blisterin' streets, and showin' me all the beauty and glory of the world, and his conversation had no effect, skercely on my mind.But what them hours of frenzied effert could not accomplish, that one still, small groan did.I love that man.I almost worship him, and he me, vise versey, and the same.

We found that Ardelia Tutt had been to see us in our absence.She had been into our room I see, for she had dropped one of her mits there.And the chambermaid said she had been in and waited for us quite a spell - the young man a waitin' below on the piazza, so Is'posed.

I expect Ardelia wanted to show him off to us and I myself wuz quite anxus to see him, feelin' worried and oncomfertable about Abram Gee and wantin' to see if this young chap wuz anywhere nigh as good as Abram.

Well about a hour after we came back, Josiah missed his glasses he reads with.And we looked all over the house for 'em, and under the bed, and on the ceilin', and through our trunks and bandboxes, and all our pockets, and in the Bible, and Josiah's boots, and everywhere.And finely, after givin' 'em up as lost, the idee come to us that they might possibly have ketched on the fringe of Ardelia's shawl, and so rode home with her on it.

So we sent one of the office-boys home with her mit and asked her if she had seen Josiah's glasses.And word come back by the boy that she hadn't seen 'em, and she sent word to me to look on my pardner's head for 'em, and sure enough there we found 'em, right on his foretop, to both of our surprises.

She sent also by the boy a poem she had wrote that afternoon, and sent word how sorry she wuz I wuzn't to home to see Mr.Flamburg.

But I see him only a day or two after that, and I didn't like his looks a mite.

But he said, and stuck to it, that his father owned a large bank, that he wuz a banker, and a doin' a heavy business.

Wall, that raised him dretfully in Ardelia's eyes; she owned up to me that it did.She owned to me that she lead always thought she would love to be a Banker's Bride.She thought it sounded rich.

She said, "banker sounded so different from baker."I sez to her coolly, that "it wuz only a difference of one letter, and I never wuz much of a one to put the letter N above any of the others, or to be haughty on havin' it added to, or diminished from my name."But she kep' on a goin' with him.She told me it wuz real romanticle the way he got aquanted with her.He see her onbeknown to her one day, when she wuz a writin' a poem on one of the benches in the park.

"A Poem on a Bench!"

She wuz a settin' on the bench, and a writin' about it, she was a writin' on the bench in two different ways.Curius, haint it?

But to resoom.He immegetly fell in love with her.And he got a feller who wuz a boardin' to his boardin' place to interduce him to Ardelia's relative, Mr.Pixley, and Mr.Pixley interduced him to Ardelia.He told Ardelia's relatives the same story - That his father wuz a banker, that he owned a bank and wuz doin' a heavy business.

Wall, I watched that young chap, and watched him close, and I see there wuz one thing about him that could be depended on, he wuz truthful.

He seemed almost morbid on the subject, and would dispute himself half a hour, to get a thing or a story he wuz tellin' jest exactly right.But he drinked; that I know for I know the symptoms.

Coffee can't blind the eyes of her that waz once Smith, nor peppermint cast a mist before 'em.My nose could have took its oath, if noses wuz ever put onto a bar of Justice - my nose would have gin its firm testimony that Bial Flamburg drinked.

And there wuz that sort of a air about him, that I can't describe exactly - a sort of a half offish, half familier and wholly disagreeable mean, that can be onderstood but not described.No, you can't picture that liniment, but you can be affected by it.

Wall, Bial had it.

And I kep' on a not likin' him, and kep' stiddy onwards a likin'

Abram Gee.I couldn't help it, nor did'nt want to.And I looked out constant to ketch him in some big story that would break him right down in Ardelia's eyes, for I knew if she had been brought up on any one commandment more'n another, it wuz the one ag'inst lyin'.She hated lyin'.

She had been brought up on the hull of the commandments but on that one in particeler; she wuz brung up sharp but good.But not one lie could I ketch him in.And he stuck to it, that his father wuz a banker and doin' a heavy business.

Wall, it kep' on, she a goin' with him through ambition, for I see plain, by signs I knoo, that she didn't love him half as well as she did Abram.And I felt bad, dretful bad, to set still and see Ambition ondoin' of her.For oft and oft she would speak to me of Bial's father's bank and the heft of the business he wuz a doin'.

And I finally got so worked up in my mind that I gin a sly hint to Abram Gee, that if he ever wanted to get Ardelia Tutt, he had better make a summer trip to Saratoga.I never told Ardelia what I had done, but trusted to a overrulin' destiny, that seems to enrap babys, and lunatiks, and soft little wimmen, when their heads get kinder turned by a man, and to Abram's honest face when she should compare it with Bial Flamburg's, and to Abram's pure, sweet breath with that mixture of stale cigars, tobacco, beer, and peppermint.

But Abram wrote back to me that his mother wuz a lyin' at the p'int of death with a fever - that his sister Susan wuz sick a bed with the same fever and couldn't come a nigh her and he couldn't leave what might be his mother's death-bed.And he sez, if Ardelia had forgot him in so short a time, mebby it wuz the best thing he could do, to try and forget her.Anyway, he wouldn't leave his dying mother for anything or anybody.

That wuz Abram Gee all over, a doin' his duty every time by bread and humanity.But he added a postscript and it wuz wrote in a agitated hand - that jest as soon as his mother got so he could leave her, he should come to Saratoga.