Ann S. Stephens

“ Getting in love is somewhat like getting drunk, the more a feller loves the more he wants tu,—and when the heart gits a going, pitty pat, pitty pat, there is such a swell, that it busts up all the strings, so that it can't hold the ginuine grit at all. When Judy White fust took hold a my arm I give the coat sleeve a rale hearty smack, where her hand had lain, and that coat I raly did love better than any other I ever had on; but I never think the better of my yaller gloves for shaking the hands of all the gals in York. ”

“ A tall chap with a sort of good natered face, but the darndest fish-hawk nose that you ever sot eyes on, stood with a lot of fellers on the deck of the boat that had the most music in it—an old codger, with a blue coat lined and faced all over with yaller, and a cocked hat right on his head, with one eend curling up, jest over his nose, like a hen-hawk ready to pick his eyes out, and with his two legs swallered up in a pair of black and yaller boots, stood close by the man with the nose. ”

“ If there is a critter on arth that I take tu, it's a good horse, and I couldn't help but be proud of them smashing arnimals as they shook their heads up so sarsy, as if the sun hadn't no business in their great eyes that had fire enough in 'em without its help, and pawed on the ground with their fore-feet—the mettlesome varmints!—like a couple of harnsome women, chuck full of music and crazy to dance it off. ”

“ Miss Elssler, arter the fust jump, looked tickled a'most to death to see such a whopper a lying there, so tempting and sweet; and I rather guess she took a squint, and sent one of her tarnal killing smiles towards a good looking sort of a chap, about my size, that sot with a checkered vest on a leaning over the Astor House box. I say nothing, but Jonathan Slick haint been to husking balls and apple cuts ever since he was knee high to a toad, without knowing the cut of a gal's looks when she's taken a shine to you, or wants you to see her hum. ”

“ A tall feller dressed out like the chaps behind, sot on this heap of gimcracks with a great long whip stuck up by his elbow, and a holding in two tremendous harnsome black horses that stood hitched to the carriage, under a hull net of black shiney leather, golden buckles, and deers' heads cut out in chunks of gold, and sot on to the blinder, and saddle-trees, and every place an inch square that they could be poked in. ”

“ Miss Josephine Burgess raly had a talent for her bisness. Nobody ever learned so many prudent ways of laying up money. She used to dress up like a queen, and her Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes were the genuine things and genteel all over. Eenamost every Sabberday she would go to meeting in a branfire new bonnet; and if some of her good natured customers that staid to hum because theirs warn't finished, had one just like it come to the door on Monday morning, the leetle gal that waited for the band-box only had to say, that she sarched and sarched on Saturday night and couldn't find the house. ”

“ Now, the whole truth is, blood is like wine, the older it is, the stronger and clearer it grows. If it warn't for that, we Yankees, that had forefathers in the Revolutionary war, have as good a right to brag about our pure blood, as the greatest and oldest line of proud England. ”

“ I can't look full into a purty gal's face all a flashing so, without being kind a dazzled and scorched. It warms me up in this cold weather, and kindles such a touse in my heart, that the blood runs through it as hot as if it had scooted through a steamboat pipe. And then the allfired critters have so many sly ways of coming over a feller, that I don't think much of a man who can see their purty mouths tremble, and not feel his tremble tu. ”

“ While I sot there a bending for'ard with one of my yaller gloves pressed down on each knee, and staring like a stuck pig with my mouth a leetle open, a lot of folks dressed off in short jackets and trousers cut off at the knees, come a dancing out of the house, and begun tu talk all at once, and chatter and laugh together as chipper as a flock of birds. ”

“ Wal now, I may as well give you a leetle notion of my goings-on here, since I went to that smashing ball, and eat presarves with a rale queen. Somehow I've begun to git sort of tired of the big bugs and the tippies, they're all too much alike, and arter a chap's been to a few of their parties, and balls, and so on, he kinder loathes their darned soft finefied nonsense, as well as the cider and sweet sarse that they stuff a feller with. ”

“ There wasn't no mistake in that chap, I can tell you. Everything was smooth as amber-grease, and my hair was so shiney and slick that a fly would a slipped up if he'd ventured to settle on it. I ony jest pulled the corner of my new handkercher out of my coat pocket a trifle, then I put my hat on with a genteel tip upwards, and down I went, chomping a handful of peppermint drops as I went along in case my breath hadn't quite got over the smell of fried onions that Captin Doolittle gin me for breakfast aboard the sloop. ”

“ Captin, Captin, I'd rather work night and day for the money than feel so lonesome about the heart as I do now; I'd as lives stay in a world without sun, as to have no sartinty in the truth of women folks. ”

“ For a hired gal, Judy was a tarnal smart critter; there wasn't a gal in all Weathersfield could pull an even yoke with her a stringing onions. Nothing on arth puts a feller to his stumps like pulling in the same team with a purty gal—and between us, it aint no ways disagreeable to sit down in the middle of a patch of onions all running to seed, to work with a gal like Judy. I say nothing, but, by gracious! if my heart hasn't beat like a partridge on a dry log, sometimes when I've catched her a looking at me from under her great sun-bonnet ”

“ She was a tarnal sweet purty critter when she come away from Weathersfield, as plump as a partridge, and with cheeks as red as a rosy. Judy made me promise a good while ago that if ever I come down to York I'd go and see her cousin, but somehow it does make a feller forget old friends to be always going to parties and dinners with these big bugs, and it warn't till t'other day that I thought anything about Susan Reed.
The fust minit she come into my head I up and went straight along the Bowery, detarmined to find the place that she worked at, and see how she was getting along. ”

“ It was about the greatest show that I ever sot eyes on. The Battery is one of the harnsomest spots on arth, all kivered with grass, and chuck full of trees, and a hull army of sogers, some in brown regimentals, some in green, with yaller feathers, and some in red, yaller, blue, and all sorts of colors, a wheelin round under the trees, was enough to make a feller proud of his country. ”

“ Wal, I went along the entry-way, only jest stopping time enough to take a swig of drink from the stun table, till I got into a room where they kept the Kings and Queens. The light come down almighty powerful over the great thick red carpet, and the settees and foot-stools and chairs glistened out like a bed of tulips in a hot sun. But the Queens, it raly did make me ketch my breath to look on 'em. Sich consarned beautiful critters I never did see. They beat all horned cattle that ever I sot eyes on. ”

“ Jest as I was a thinking whether it was best for Lord Morpeth to come before I got in myself—for I didn't want to du nothing that wasn't according to gunter, if he was a lord—a feller come down the Astor House steps dressed off to the nines, with a harnsome cloak slung across his shoulder, and one side of his hat tipped up jest enough to show a hull swad of curly hair a frizzling round his ears. ”

“ I've only got Miss Miles out of my head, to git a thousand new shinin faces in. Lord knows what'll become of me, Par, if I go on to be bedivilled arter the women, as I have been this new year's day. When a feller is made any thing on by 'em he must have been brought up under good preaching in Weathersfield to stand it here in York. I feel as if I shouldn't be good for much afore long, myself, the way I am going on, but to skoot up and down Broadway like that ere Count, and to hang round gals' winders with fifes, and bassoons, and drums, and gitars at night. ”

“ Then the tall man in whiskers would begin to look as if he raly had been a killing critter with the women folks, and would say that he wouldn't deny it—he had now and then his leetle flirtations, like all men of rale fashion—but he'd never in his whole life took sich a notion to a critter as he had to her. With that Miss Josephine Burgess (that was) would fling both of her arms round the tall man's neck, and declare that there was not so proud and happy a critter on the hull arth as she was. ”

“ But by-am-by I begun to think they had more cause to be ashamed than I had. Who on arth would ever have thought them stiff indecent looking things were made for a delicate gal to wear? I felt dreadfully though, to think that I'd been a talking about a gal's under-riggin, to a woman so long, but after a few minits I begun to think that I needn't fret myself much about that. The woman that stuck them things out in the street for young fellers to look at, needn't go off in a fit of "the dreadful suz," because a chap asks the price of them. ”

“ It gives a man something to be proud of, something to guard and keep himself good and honorable for. A man must be mean as pusley, and meaner yet, who could do a small action while he knew that his blood had been kept, pure as spring water, by a hull line of good men, all a sleeping in their graves."
"But, arter all," sez I, "what is the nobility of Old England more than that which we Yankees have a right to?" ”

“ Jason he kinder seemed loth to go in fust; and arter all his money, I couldn't help but think the old feller in the hall looked as well and acted a good deal more like a rale gentleman, than he did. There's nothing like being rich to git up a man's pluck; arter fidgeting with his watch-seals a minit, Jase stuck up his head like a mud turtle in the sun, and in he went. ”

“ It has raly made my blood bile more than ever to see foreign and dandefied chaps, like that hairy lipped Count, go by them gals in the day time, with their noses up in the air, and a looking as if the purty critters warn't good enough to go along the same stun walk with them, and the stuck up quality ladies; when any body that took pains to watch the etarnal varments arter dark, might ketch them a hanging round the dark corners of the streets, and a chasing arter them same working gals like so many darn'd yaller foxes scouting round a hen coop, arter the geese and turkeys ”

“ Then he took a thing out of his vest pocket hitched to a gold chain that he wore round his neck, and held it up to one eye, and there he stood a staring at me and twisting his face and a brustling up his hair lip, like an etarnal monkey. ”

“ I du think, when a chap begins to have a bad opinion of the wimmin folks, it's a sign that there is something out of the way in his own heart; but it comes tough to keep a feller's heart in the right place, while sich sweet, purty, indecent critters as that Celeste, are a kicking up their heels and flinging all sorts of queer ideas into his mind. Arter seeing her flurish her white short gown, without petticoat, afore all them folks, I begun to hate the gals like pison; it seemed to me as if they warn't made for men's wives, or tu be mothers and sister's. ”

“ Miles; but when I see a harnsome innocent young gal a going out arly in the morning and a coming home late at night, and working like a dog to arn a decent living, somehow my heart rises up in my throat, and insted of shinning up to 'em, and talking soft sodder, as I du to the tippies, I feel sort of dashed, and as if a chap ought to take off his hat, and let them see that honest men respect them the more because they are alone, with nobody to take care of them. ”

“ But who cares? sez I to myself. I'll bet a cookey if there warn't but two men in the world, and them were that darned feller and Jonathan Slick, and she'd got to marry one or t'other, she wouldn't be long a making up her mind whether to take a chap for what he's got in his head or for the hair that grows outside on it; for a gal with half an eye might see that when a feller's brains all run to hair, he can't have much sense left. ”

“ But I can't begin to write more than a priming of what a feller may see as he goes up Broadway. It fairly made me ashamed of our horses, old Polly in perticlar, when I saw the harnsome critters that the niggers drive about them coaches with here. I tell you what, they make a glistening and a shining when they go through the streets chuck full of gals all in their feathers and furbelows! That Broadway is a leetle lengthy, and no mistake. I believe I footed it more than two miles on them tarnal hard stun walks, afore I got to Bond street, where Cousin Beebe lives, I swan! ”

“ Old England, I must own, has got a grist of noble families and great men, that are an honor and etarnal glory to it, but the blood that biled up in that old man's heart, was as red, as brave, yes, and as noble tu, as ever poured itself out on the sile of old England, in the time of William, or any other Conqueror ”

“ It raly is enough to make a feller grit his teeth to see the harnsome critters sideling and curchying along the stun walks, wrapped up in silks and satins and velvets, and all sorts of feathers, as long as them that Captain Jones wore in his training cap, as if it only wanted a fiddler to set them all a dancing, when their husbands are out a shinning and working themselves to death to keep their notes from being sued by the lawyers. It don't seem right, but yit they do look tarnal killing in their furbelows—it's of no use denying that. ”

“ There never was a neater critter on arth than marm; but the hull premises raly looked more like a hog pen than any thing else. Judy and I went to work like good fellers—she forgot to be mad and tackled to, washing dishes and gitting supper, while I went out to milk. Marm wouldn't come to supper, and par eenamost choked with every mouthful he eat, and yit he looked more than half wrathy, as if he'd about as much trouble to keep his dander down as to hold up the tears that every once in a while kept a dropping from under his eyes down the side of his nose. ”