Samantha at Saratoga | Page 9

is the most noted spah on this continent."
I wouldn't contend with him for it wuz on the stoop of the meetin'
house, and I believe in bein' reverent. But I knew it wuzn't no "spah," --
that had a dreadful flat sound to me. And any way I knew I should face
its realities soon and know all about it. Lots of wimen said that for
anybody who lived right on the side of a canal, and had two good,
cisterns on the place, and a well, they didn't see why I should feel in a
sufferin' condition for any more water; and if I did, why didn't I ketch
rain water?
Such wuz some of the deep arguments they brung up aginst my
embarkin' on this enterprise, they talked about it sights and sights; --
why, it lasted the neighbors for a stiddy conversation, till along about
the middle of the winter. Then the Minister's wife bought a new
alpacky dress -- unbeknown to the church till it wuz made up -- and
that kind o' drawed their minds off o' me for a spell.
Aunt Polly Pixley wuz the only one who received the intelligence
gladly. And she thought she would go too. She had been kinder run
down and most bed rid for years. And she had a idee the water might
help her. And I encouraged Aunt Polly in the idee, for she wuz well off.
Yes, Mr. and Miss Pixley wuz very well off though they lived in a little
mite of a dark, low, lonesome house, with some tall Pollard willows in
front of the door in a row, and jest acrost the road from a grave-yard.
Her husband had been close and wuzn't willin' to have any other luxury
or means of recreation in the house only a bass viol, that had been his
father's -- he used to play on that for hours and hours. I thought that
wuz one reason why Polly wuz so nervous. I said to Josiah that it
would have killed me outright to have that low grumblin' a goin' on
from day to day, and to look at them tall lonesome willows and grave
stuns.
But, howsumever, Polly's husband had died durin' the summer, and
Polly parted with the bass viol the day after the funeral. She got out
some now, and wuz quite wrought up with the idee of goin' to Saratoga.
But Sister Minkley; sister in the church and sister-in-law by reason of

Wbitefield, sez to me, that she should think I would think twice before
I danced and waltzed round waltzes.
And I sez, "I haint thought of doin' it, I haint thought of dancin' round
or square or any other shape."
Sez she, "You have got to, if you go to Saratoga."
Sez I, "Not while life remains in this frame."
And old Miss Bobbet came up that minute -- it wuz in the store that we
were a talkin' -- and sez she, "It seems to me, Josiah Allen's wife, that
you are too old to wear low-necked dresses and short sleeves."
"And I should think you'd take cold a goin' bareheaded," sez Miss
Luman Spink who wuz with her.
Sez I, lookin' at 'em coldly, "Are you lunys or has softness begun on
your brains?"
"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