"Why," sez they, "you are talking about goin' to Saratoga, hain't you?"

"Yes," sez I.

"Well then you have got to wear 'em," says Miss Bobbet. "They don't let anybody inside of the incorporation without they have got on a low-necked dress and short sleeves."

"And bare-headed," sez Miss Spink; "if they have' got a thing on their heads they won't let 'em in."

Sez I, "I don't believe it"

Sez Miss Bobbet, "It is so, for I hearn it, and hearn it straight.

James Robbets's wife's sister had a second cousin who lived neighbor to a woman whose niece had been there, been right there on the spot. And Celestine Bobbet, Uncle Ephraim's Celestine, hearn it from James'es wife when she wuz up there last spring, it come straight. They all have to go in low necks."

"And not a mite of anything on their heads," says Miss Spink.

Sez I in sarcastical axents, "Do men have to go in low necks too?"

"No," says Miss Bobbet. "But they have to have the tails of their coats kinder pinted. Why," sez she, "I hearn of a man that had got clear to the incorporation and they wouldn't let him in because his coat kinder rounded off round the bottom, so he went out by the side of the road and pinned up his coat tails, into a sort of a pinted shape, and good land the incorporation let him right in, and never said a word."

I contended that these things wuzn't so, but I found it wuz the prevailin' opinion. For when I went to see the dressmaker about makin' me a dress for the occasion, I see she felt just like the rest about it. My dress wuz a good black alpacky. I thought I would have it begun along in the edge of the winter, when she didn't have so much to do, and also to have it done on time. We laid out to start on the follerin' July, and I felt that I wanted everything ready.

I bought the dress the 7th day of November early in the forenoon, the next day after my pardner consented to go, and give 65 cents a yard for it, double wedth. I thought I could get it done on time, dressmakers are drove a good deal. But I felt that a dressmaker could commence a dress in November and get it done the follerin'

July, without no great strain bein' put onto her; and I am fur from bein' the one to put strains onto wimmen, and hurry 'em beyend their strength. But I felt Almily had time to make it on honor and with good b.u.t.tonholes.

"Well," she sez, the first thing after she had unrolled the alpacky, and held it up to the light to see if it was firm -- sez she:

"I s'pose you are goin' to have it made with a long train, and low neck and short sleeves, and the waist all girted down to a taper?"

I wuz agast at the idee, and to think Alminy should broach it to me, and I give her a piece of my mind that must have lasted her for days and days. It wuz a long piece, and firm as iron. But she is a woman who likes to have the last word and carry out her own idees, and she insisted that n.o.body was allowed in Saratoga -- that they wuz outlawed, and laughed at if they didn't have trains and low necks, and little mites of waists no bigger than pipe-stems.

Sez I, "Alminy Hagidone, do you s'pose that I, a woman of my age, and a member of the meetin' house, am a goin' to wear a low-necked dress?"

"Why not?," sez she, "it is all the fashion and wimmen as old agin as you be wear 'em."

Well, sez I, "It is a shame and a disgrace if they do, to say nothin' of the wickedness of it. Who do you s'pose wants to see their old skin and bones? It haint nothin' pretty anyway. And as fer the waists bein' all girted up and drawed in, that is nothin'

but crushed bones and flesh and vitals, that is just crowdin' down your insides into a state o' disease and deformity, torturin' your heart down so's the blood can't circulate, and your lungs so's you can't breathe, it is nothin' but slow murder anyway, and if I ever take it into my head to kill myself, Alminy Hagidone, I haint a goin' to do it in a way of perfect torture and torment to me, I'd ruther be drownded."

She quailed, and I sez, "I am one that is goin' to take good long breaths to the very last." She see I wuz like iron aginst the idee of bein' drawed in, and tapered, and she desisted. I s'pose I did look skairful. But she seemed still to cling to the idee of low necks and trains, and she sez sort a rebukingly:

"You ortn't to go to Saratoga if you haint willin' to do as the rest do. I spose," sez she dreamily, "the streets are full of wimmen a walkin' up and down with long trains a hangin' down and sweepin' the streets, and ev'ry one on 'em with low necks and short sleeves, and all on 'em a flirting with some man"

"Truly," sez I, "if that is so, that is why the idee come to me.

I am needed there. I have a high mission to perform about. But I don't believe it is so."

"Then you won't have it made with a long train?" sez she, a holdin'

up a breadth of the alpacky in front of me, to measure the skirt.

"No mom!" sez I, and there wuz both dignity and deep resolve in that "mom." It wuz as firm and stern principled a "mom" as I ever see, though I say it that shouldn't. And I see it skairt her.

She measured off the breadths kinder trembly, and seemed so anxious to pacify me that she got it a leetle shorter in the back than it wuz in the front. And (for the same reason) it fairly clicked me in the neck it wuz so high, and the sleeves wuz that long that I told Josiah Allen (in confidence) I was tempted to knit some loops across the bottom of 'em and wear 'em for mits.

But I didn't, and I didn't change the dress neither. Thinkses I, mebby it will have a good moral effect on them other old wimmen there. Thinkses I, when they see another woman melted and shortened and choked fur principle's sake, mebby they will pause in their wild careers.

Wall, this wuz in November, and I wuz to have the dress, if it wuz a possible thing, by the middle of April, so's to get it home in time to sew some lace in the neck. And so havin' everything settled about goin' I wuz calm in my frame most all the time, and so wuz my pardner.

And right here, let me insert this one word of wisdom for the special comfort of my sect and yet it is one that may well be laid to heart by the more opposite one. If your pardner gets restless and oneasy and middlin' cross, as pardners will be anon, or even oftener -- start them off on a tower. A tower will in 9 cases out of 10 lift 'em out of their oneasiness, their restlessness and their crossness.

Why this is so I cannot tell, no more than I can explain other mysteries of creation, but I know it is so. I know they will come home more placider, more serener, and more settled-downer. Why I have known a short tower to Slab City or Loontown act like a charm on my pardner, when crossness wuz in his mean and snappishness wuz present with him. I have known him to set off with the mean of a lion and come back with the liniment of a lamb. Curious, haint it?

And jest the prospect of a tower ahead is a great help to a woman in rulin' and keepin' a pardner straight and right in his liniments and his acts. Somehow jest the thought of a tower sort a lifts him up in mind, and happifys him, and makes him easier to quell, and pardners must be quelled at times, else there would be no livin' with 'em. This is known to all wimmen companions and and men too. Great great is the mystery of pardners.

II.

ARDELLA TUTT AND HER MOTHER.

But to resoom and continue on. I was a settin' one day, after it wuz all decided, and plans laid on; I wuz a settin' by the fire a mendin' one of Josiah's socks. I wuz a settin' there, as soft and pliable in my temper as the woosted I wuz a darnin' 'em with, my Josiah at the same time a peacefelly sawin' wood in the wood-house, when I heard a rap at the door and I riz up and opened it, and there stood two perfect strangers, females. I, with a perfect dignity and grace (and with the sock still in my left hand) asked 'em to set down, and consequently they sot. Then ensued a slight pause durin' which my two gray eyes roamed over the females before me.

The oldest one wuz very sharp in her face and had a pair of small round eyes that seemed when they were sot onto you to sort a bore into you like two gimlets. Her nose was very sharp and defient, as if it wuz constantly sayin' to itself, "I am a nose to be looked up to, I am a nose to be respected, and feared if necessary." Her chin said the same thing, and her lips which wuz very thin, and her elbow, which wuz very sharp.

Her dress was a stiff sort of a shinin' poplin, made tight acrost the chest and elboes. And her hat had some stiff feathers in it that stood up straight and sort a sharp lookin'. She had a long sharp breast-pin sort a stabbed in through the front of her stiff standin' collar, and her knuckles sot out through her firm lisle thread gloves, her umberell wuz long and wound up hard, to that extent I have never seen before nor sense. She wuz, take it all in all, a hard sight, and skairful.

The other one wuzn't no more like her in looks than a soft fat young cabbage head is like the sharp bean pole that it grows up by the side on, in the same garden. She wuz soft in her complexion, her lips, her cheeks, her hands, and as I mistrusted at that first minute, and found out afterwards, soft in her head too. Her dress wuz a loose-wove parmetty, full in the waist and sort a drabbly round the bottom. Her hat wuz drab-colored felt with some loose ribbon bows a hangin' down on it, and some soft ostridge tips.

She had silk mits on and her hands wuz fat and kinder moist-lookin'. Her eyes wuz very large and round, and blue, and looked sort o' dreamy and wanderin' and there wuz a kind of a wrapped smile on her face all the time. She had a roll of paper in her hand and I didn't dislike her looks a mite.

Finally the oldest female opened her lips, some as a steel trap would open sudden and kinder sharp, and sez she: "I am Miss Deacon Tutt, of Tuttville, and this is my second daughter Ardelia.

Cordelia is my oldest, and I have 4 younger than Ardelia."

I bowed real polite and said, "I wuz glad to make the acquaintance of the hull 7 on 'em." I can be very genteel when I set out, almost stylish.

"I s'pose," says she, "I am talkin' to Josiah Allen's wife?"

I gin her to understand that that wuz my name and my station, and she went on, and sez she: "I have hearn on you through my husband's 2d cousin, Cephas Tutt."

"Cephas," sez she, "bein' wrote to by me on the subject of Ardelia, the same letter containin' seven poems of hern, and on bein' asked to point out the quickest way to make her name and fame known to the world at large, wrote back that he havin' always dealt in b.u.t.ter and lard, wuzn't up to the market price in poetry, and that you would be a good one to go to for advice. And so,"

sez she a pointin' to a bag she carried on her arm (a hard lookin'

bag made of crash with little bullets and k.n.o.bs of embroidery on it), "and so we took this bag full of Ardelia's poetry and come on the mornin' train, Cephas'es letter havin' reached us at nine o'clock last night. I am a woman of business."

The bag would hold about 4 quarts and it wuz full. I looked at it and sithed.

"I see," sez she, "that you are sorry that we didn't bring more poetry with us. But we thought that this little batch would give you a idee of what a mind she has, what a glorious, soarin' genus wuz in front of you, and we could bring more the next time we come."

I sithed agin, three times, but Miss Tutt didn't notice 'em a mite no more'n they'd been giggles or t.i.tters. She wouldn't have took no notice of them. She wuz firm and decided doin' her own errent, and not payin' no attention to anything, nor anybody else.

"Ardelia, read the poem you have got under your arm to Miss Allen!

The bag wuz full of her longer ones," sez she, "but I felt that I must let you hear her poem on spring. It is a gem. I felt it would be wrongin' you, not to give you that treat. Read it Ardelia."