Samantha at Saratoga | Page 4

AND SAMANTHA TAKE A LONG WALK

CHAPTER IX.
JOSIAH'S FLIRTATIONS

CHAPTER X.
MISS G. WASHINGTON FLAMM

CHAPTER XI.
VISIT TO THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT

CHAPTER XII.
A DRIVE TO SARATOGA LAKE

CHAPTER XIII.
VISITS TO NOTABLE PLACES

CHAPTER XIV.
LAKE GEORGE AND MOUNT McGREGOR

CHAPTER XV.
ADVENTURES AT VARIOUS SPRINGS

CHAPTER XVI.

AT A LAWN PARTY

CHAPTER XVII.
A TRIP TO SCHUYLERVILLE

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SOCIAL SCIENCE MEETING

CHAPTER XIX.
ST. CHRISTINA'S HOME

CHAPTER XX.
AN ACCIDENT WITH RESULTS

A SORT OF PREFACE.
WHICH IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO READ.
When Josiah read my dedication he said "it wuz a shame to dedicate a
book that it had took most a hull bottle of ink to write, to a lot of
creeters that he wouldn't have in the back door yard."
But I explained it to him, that I didn't mean tramps with broken hats,
variegated pantaloons, ventilated shirt-sleeves, and barefooted. But I
meant tramps with diamond ear-rings, and cuff-buttons, and Saratoga
trunks, and big accounts at their bankers.
And he said, "Oh, shaw!"
But I went on nobly, onmindful of that shaw, as female pardners have
to be, if they accomplish all the talkin' they want to.
And sez I, "It duz seem sort o' pitiful, don't it, to think how sort o'
homeless the Americans are a gettin'? How the posys that blow under
the winders of Home are left to waste their sweet breaths amongst the
weeds, while them that used to love 'em are a climbin' mountain tops
after strange nosegays."
The smoke that curled up from the chimbleys, a wreathin' its way up to

the heavens -- all dead and gone. The bright light that shone out of the
winder through the dark a tellin' everybody that there wuz a Home, and
some one a waitin' for somebody -- all dark and lonesome.
Yes, the waiter and the waited for are all a rushin' round somewhere, on
the cars, mebby, or a yot, a chasin' Pleasure, that like as not settled right
down on the eves of the old house they left, and stayed there.
I wonder if they will find her there when they go back again. Mebby
they will, and then agin, mebby they won't. For Happiness haint one to
set round and lame herself a waitin' for folks to make up their minds.
Sometimes she looks folks full in the face, sort o' solemn like and
heart-searchin', and gives 'em a fair chance what they will chuse. And
then if they chuse wrong, shee'll turn her back to 'em, for always. I've
hearn of jest such cases.
But it duz seem sort o' solemn to think -- how the sweet restful felin's
that clings like ivy round the old familier door steps -- where old 4
fathers feet stopped, and stayed there, and baby feet touched and then
went away -- I declare for't, it almost brings tears, to think how that
sweet clingin' vine of affection, and domestic repose, and content --
how soon that vine gets tore up nowadays.
It is a sort of a runnin' vine anyway, and folks use it as sech, they run
with it. Jest as it puts its tendrils out to cling round some fence post, or
lilock bush, they pull it up, and start off with it. And then its roots get
dry, and it is some time before it will begin to put out little shoots and
clingin' leaves agin round some petickular mountain top, or bureau or
human bein'. And then it is yanked up agin, poor little runnin' vine, and
run with -- and so on -- and so on -- and so on.
Why sometimes it makes me fairly heart-sick to think on't. And I fairly
envy our old 4 fathers, who used to set down for several hundred years
in one spot. They used to get real rested, it must be they did.
Jacob now, settin' right by that well of his'n for pretty nigh two hundred
years. How much store he must have set by it during the last hundred
years of 'em! How attached he must have been to it!
Good land! Where is there a well that one of our rich old American
patriarks will set down by for two years, leavin' off the orts. There haint
none, there haint no such a well. Our patriarks haint fond of well water,
anyway.
And old Miss Abraham now, and Miss Isaac -- what stay to home

wimmen they wuz, and equinomical!
What a good contented creeter Sarah Abraham wuz. How settled down,
and stiddy, stayin' right to home for hundreds of years. Not gettin'
rampent for a wider spear, not a coaxin' old Mr. Abraham nights to take