Samantha at Saratoga | Page 9

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 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 buttonholes.
"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,