They didn't answer me back, none on 'em, but I felt that they understood me. The pines whispered sunthin' to each other, and the brook put its moist lips up to the pebbly sh.o.r.e and whispered sunthin' to the gra.s.ses that bent down to hear it. I don't know exactly what it wuz, but it wuz sunthin' friendly I know, for I felt it speak right through the soft, summer sunshine into my heart. They couldn't exactly tell what they felt towards me, and I couldn't exactly tell what I felt towards them, yet we understood each other; curi'us, haint it?

Wall, we got into the carriage ag'in, one of her relatives gettin' down to open the door. They knew what good manners is; I'll say that for 'em. And Miss Flamm took her dog into her arms seemin'ly glad to get holt of him ag'in, and kissed it several times with a deep love and devotedness. She takes good care of that dog. And what makes it harder for her to handle him is, her dress is so tight, and her sleeves. I s'pose that is why she can't breathe any better, and what makes her face and hands red, and kinder swelled up. She can't get her hands to her head to save her, and if a a.s.sa.s.sin should strike her, she couldn't raise her arm to ward off the blow if he killed her. I s'pose it worrys her.

And she has to put her bunnet on jest as quick as she gets her petticoats on, for she can't lift he arms to save her life after she gets her corsets on. She owned up to me once that it made her feel queer to be a walkin' 'round her room with not much on only her bunnet all trimmed off with high feathers and artificial flowers.

But she said she wuz willing to do anythin' necessary, and she felt that she must have her waist taper, no matter what stood in the way on't. She loves the looks of a waist that tapers. That wuz all the fault she found with the G.o.ddus of Liberty enlightenin' the world in New York Harber. We got to talkin'

about it and she said, "If that G.o.ddus only had corsets on, and sleeves that wuz skin tight, and her overskirt looped back over a bustle, it would be perfect!"

But I told her I liked her looks as well ag'in as she wuz. "Why,"

sez I, "How could she lift her torch above her head? And how could she ever enlighten the world, if she wuz so held down by her corsets and sleeves that she couldn't wave her torch?"

She see in a minute that it couldn't be done. She owned up that she couldn't enlighten the world in that condition, but as fur as looks went, it would be perfectly beautiful.

But I don't think so at all. But, as I say, Miss Flamm has a real hard time on't, all bard down as she is, and takin' all the care of that dog, day and night. She is jest devoted to it.

Why jest before we started a little lame girl with a shabby dress, but a face angel sweet, came to the side of the carriage to sell some water lilies. Her face looked patient, and wistful, and she jest held out her flowers silently, and stood with her bare feet on the wet ground and her pretty eyes lookin' pitifully into our'n. She wanted to sell 'em awfully, I could see. And I should have bought the hull of 'em immegitly, my feelin's was sech, but onfortionably I had left my port-money in my other pocket, and Josiah said he had left his (mebby he had). But Miss Flamm would have bought 'em in a minute, I knew, the child's face looked so mournful and appealin'; she would have bought 'em, but she wuz so engrossed by the dog; she wuz a holdin' him up in front of her a admirin' and carressin' of him, so's she never ketched sight of the lame child.

No body, not the best natured creeter in the world, can see through a dog when it is held clost up to the eye, closer than anything else.

Wall, we drove down to what they called Vichy Spring and there on a pretty pond clost to the springhouse, we see a boat with a bycycle on it, and a boy a ridin' it. The boat wuz rigged out to look like a swan with its wings a comin' up each side of the boy.

And down on the water, a sailin' along closely and silently wuz another swan, a shadow swan, a follerin' it right along. It wuz a fair seen.

And Josiah sez to me, "He should ride that boat before he left Saratoga; he said that wuz a undertakin' that a man might be proud to accomplish."

Sez I, "Josiah Allen, don't you do anything of the kind."

"I MUST, Samantha," sez he. And then he got all animated about fixin' up a boat like it at home. Sez he, "Don't you think it would be splendid to have one on the ca.n.a.l jest beyond the orchard?" And sez he, "Mebby, bein' on a farm, it would be more appropriate to have a big goose sculptured out on it; don't you think so?"

Sez I, "Yes, it would be fur more appropriate, and a goose a ridin' on it. But," sez I, "you will never go into that undertakin' with my consent, Josiah Allen."

"Why," sez he, "it would be a beautiful recreation; so uneek."

But at that minute Miss Flamm gin the order to turn round and start for the Moon, or that is how I understood her, and I whispered to Josiah and sez, "She means to go in the buggy, for the land's sake!"

And Josiah sez, "Wall, I haint a goin' and you haint. I won't let you go into anythin' so dangerus. She will probably drive into a baloon before long, and go up in that way, but jest before she drives in, you and I will get out, Samantha, if we have to walk back."

"I never heard of anybody goin' up in a baloon with two horses and a buggy," sez I.

"Wall, new things are a happenin' all the time, Samantha. And I heard a feller a talkin' about it yesterday. You know they are a havin' the big political convention here, and he said, (he wuz a real cute chap too,) he said, 'if the wind wasted in that convention could be utilized by pipes goin' up out of the ruff of that buildin' where it is held,' he said, 'it would take a man up to the moon.' I heerd him say it. And now, who knows but they have got it all fixed. There wuz dretful windy speeches there this mornin'. I hearn 'em, and I'll bet that is her idee, of bein' the first one to try it; she is so fashionable. But I haint a goin' up in no sech a way."

"No," sez I. "Nor I nuther. It would be fur from my wishes to be carried up to the skies on the wind of a political convention.

"Though," sez I reasonably, "I haint a doubt that there wuz sights, and sights of it used there."

But jest at this minute Miss Flamm got through talkin' with her relatives about the road, and settled down to caressin' the dog ag'in, and Josiah hadn't time to remark any further, only to say, "Watch me, Samantha, and when I say jump, jump."

And then we sot still but watchful. And Miss Flamm kissed the dog several times and pressed him to her heart that throbbed full of such a boundless love for him. And he lifted his head and snapped at a fly, and barked at my companion with a renewed energy, and showed his intellect and delightful qualities in sech remarkable ways, that filled Miss Flamm's soul deep with a proud joy in him.

And then he went to sleep a layin, down in her lap, a mashin' down the delicate lace and embroidery and beads. He had been a eating the beads, I see him gnaw off more than two dozen of 'em, and I called her attention to it, but she said, "The dear little darlin'

had to have some such recreation." And she let him go on with it, a mowin' 'em down, as long as he seemed to have a appet.i.te for 'em.

And ag'in she called him "angel." The idee of a angel a gnawin'

off beads and a yelpin'!

And I asked her, and I couldn't help it. How her baby wuz that afternoon, and if she ever took it out to drive?

And she said she didn't really know how it wuz this afternoon; it wuzn't very well in the mornin'. The nurse had it out somewhere, she didn't really know just where. And she said, no, she didn't take it out with her at all -- fur she didn't feel equal to the care of it, in this hot weather.

Miss Flamm haint very well I could see that. The care of that dog is jest a killin' her, a carryin' it round with her all the time daytimes, and a bein' up with it so much nights. She said it had a dretful chill the night before, and she had to get up to warm blankets to put round it; "its nerves wuz so weak," she said, "and it wuz so sensative that she could not trust it to a nurse." She has a hard time of it; there haint a doubt of it.

Wall, it wuz anon, or jest about anon, that Miss Flamm turned to me and sez, "Moon's is one of the pleasantest places on the lake.

I want you to see it; folks drive out there a sight from Saratoga."

And then I looked at Josiah, and Josiah looked at me, and peace and happiness settled down ag'in onto our hearts.

Wall, we got there considerably before anon and we found that Moon's insted of bein' up in another planet wuz a big, long sort a low buildin' settled right down onto this old earth, with a immense piazza stretchin' along the side on't.

And Miss Flamm and Josiah and me disembarked from the carriage right onto the end of it. But the dog and her relatives stayed back in the buggy and Josiah spoke bitterly to me ag'in but low, "They think it would hurt 'em to a.s.sociate with me a little, dumb 'm; but I am jest as good as they be any day of the week, if I haint dressed up so fancy."

"That's so," sez I, whisperin' back to him, "and don't let it worry you a mite. Don't try to act like Haman," sez I. "You are havin' lots of the good things of this world, and are goin' to have some fried potatoes. Don't let them two Mordecais at the gate, poison all your happiness, or you may get come up with jest as Haman wuz."

"I'd love to hang'em," sez he, "as high as Haman's gallows would let 'em hang."

"Why," sez I, "they haint injured you in any way. They seem to eat like perfect gentlemen. A little too exclusive and aristocratic, mebby, but they haint done nothin' to you."

"No," sez he, "that is the stick on it, here we be, three men with a lot of wimmen. And they can't a.s.sociate with me as man with man, but set off by themselves too dumb proud to say a word to me, that is the dumb of it."

But at this very minute, before I could rebuke him for his feerful profanity, Miss Flamm motioned to us to come and take a seat round a little table, and consequently we sot.

It was a long broad piazza with sights and sights of folks on it a settin' round little tables like our'n, and all a lookin'

happy, and a laughin', and a talkin' and a drinkin' different drinks, sech as lemonade, etc., and eatin' fried potatoes and sech.

And out in the road by which we had come, wuz sights and sights of vehicles and conveyances of all kinds from big Tally Ho coaches with four horses on 'em, down to a little two wheeled buggy. The road wuz full on'em.

In front of us, down at the bottom of a steep though beautiful hill, lay stretched out the clear blue waters of the lake.

Smooth and tranquil it looked in the light of that pleasant afternoon, and fur off, over the shinin' waves, lay the island.

And white-sailed boats wuz a sailin' slowly by, and the shadow of their white sails lay down in the water a floatin' on by the side of the boats, lookin' some like the wings of that white dove that used to watch over Lake Saratoga.

And as I looked down on the peaceful seen, the feelin's I had down in the wild wood, back of the Gizer Spring come back to me.

The waves rolled in softly from fur off, fur off, bringin' a greetin' to me unbeknown to anybody, unbeknown to me. It come into my heart unbidden, unsought, from afur, afur.

Where did it come from that news of lands more beautiful than any that lay round Mr. Moons'es, beautiful as it wuz.

Echoes of music sweeter fur than wuz a soundin' from the band down by the sh.o.r.e, music heard by some finer sense than heard that, heavenly sweet, heavenly sad, throbbin' through the remoteness of that country, through the nearness of it, and fillin' my eyes with tears. Not sad tears, not happy ones, but tears that come only to them that shet their eyes and behold the country, and love it. The waves softly lappin' the sh.o.r.e brought a message to me; my soul hearn it. Who sent it? And where, and when, and why?

Not a trace of these emotions could be read on my countenance as I sot there calmly a eatin' fried potatoes. And they did go beyond anything I ever see in the line of potatoes, and I thought I could fry potatoes with any one: Yes, such wuz my feelin's when I sot out for Mr. Moons'es. But I went back a thinkin' that potatoes had never been fried by me, sech is the power of a grand achievment over a inferior one, and so easy is the sails taken down out of the swellin' barge of egotism.

No, them potatoes you could carry in your pocket for weeks right by the side of the finest lace, and the lace would be improved by the purity of 'em. Fried potatoes in that condition, you could eat 'em with the lightest silk gloves one and the tips of the fingers would be improved by 'em; fried potatoes, jest think on't!

Wall, we had some lemonade too, and if you'll believe it, -- I don't s'pose you will but it is the truth, -- there wuz straws in them gla.s.ses too. But you may as well believe it for I tell the truth at all times, and if I wuz a goin' to lie, I wouldn't lie about lemons. And then I've always noticed it, that if things git to happenin' to you, lots of things jest like it will happen.

That made twice in one week or so, that I had found straws in my tumbler. But then I have had company three days a runnin', rainy days too sometimes. It haint nothin' to wonder at too much. Any way it is the truth.