Samantha at the Worlds Fair | Page 7

daughter's love and with all the love a mother gives to a helpless baby, with the pity added that gray hairs and toothless gums must amount to added up over the sum of dimples and ivory and coral that makes up a baby's beautiful helplessness.
And they wuz took from her dretful sudden. There wuz a sort of a influenza prevailin' up round their way, and lots of strong healthy folks suckumbed to it, and it struck onto these poor old feeble ones some like simiters, and mowed 'em right down.
The old lady wuz took down first, and her great anxiety wuz--"That Pa shouldn't know that she wuz so sick."
But before she died, "Pa" in another room wuz took with it, and passed away a day before she did.
She worried all that mornin' about "Pa," and--"How bad he would feel if he knew she wuz so sick!" But along late in the afternoon, when the Winter sun wuz makin' a pale reflection on the wall through the south winder, she looked up, and sez she--
"Why, there stands Pa right by my bed, and he wants me to git up and go with him. And, Isabelle, I must go."
And she did.
[Illustration: "Why, there stands Pa, and he wants me to git up and go with him."]
And Isabelle wuz left alone.
They wuz buried in one grave. And the funeral sermon, they say, wuz enough to melt a stun, if there had been any stuns round where they could hear it.
Isabelle didn't hear it (don't git the idee that I am a-wantin' to compare her to a stun; no, fur from it). She wuz a-layin' to home on a bed, with her sad eyes bent on nothin'ess and emptiness and utter desolation, so it seemed to her.
But after a time she begun to pick up a little, judgin' from her letters to her brother Krit. He had to leave her jest after the funeral on account of his business; for, civil as it wuz, it had to be tended to.
CHAPTER II.
Wall, we all enjoyed havin' Christopher there the best that ever wuz. For he wuz very agreeable, as well as oncommon smart, which two qualities don't always go together, as has often been observed by others, and I have seen for myself.
Wall, it wuzn't more than a week or so after Krit arrived and got there, that another relation made his appearance in Jonesville.
It wuz of 'em on his side this time--not like Krit, half hisen and half mine, but clear hisen. Clear Allen, with no Smith at all in the admixture.
Proud enough wuz my pardner of him, and of himself too for bein' born his cousin. (Though that wuz onbeknown to him at the time, and he ort not to have gloried in it.)
But tickled wuz he when word come that Elnathan Allen, Esquire, of Menlo Park, California, wuz a-comin' to Jonesville to visit his old friends.
[Illustration: Tickled wuz he when word come.]
That man had begun life poor--poor as a snipe; sometimes I used to handle that very word "Snipe" a-describin' Elnathan Allen's former circumstances to Josiah, when he got too overbearin' about him.
For he had boasted to me about him for years, and years, and a woman can't stand only jest about so much aggravatin' and treadin' on before she will turn like a worm.
That is Bible about "The Worm," and must be believed.
What used to mad me the worst wuz when he would git to comparin' Elnathan with one of 'em on my side who wuz shiftless. Good land! 'Zekiel Smith hain't the only man on earth who is ornary and no account. Every pardner has 'em, more or less, on his side and on hern; let not one pardner boast themselves over the other one; both have their drawbacks.
But Elnathan had done well; I admitted it only when I wuz too much put upon.
He had gone fur West, got rich, invested his capital first rate, some on it in a big Eastern city, and had got to be a millionare.
He wuz a widower with one child, The Little Maid, as he called her; he jest idolized her, and thought she wuz perfect.
And I spoze she wuz oncommon, not from what her Pa said--no, I didn't take all his talk about her for Gospel; I know too much.
But Barzelia Ann Allen (a old maid up to date) had seen her, had been out to California on a excursion train, and had staid some time with 'em.
And she said that she wuz the smartest child this side of Heaven. With eyes of violet blue, big luminous eyes, that draw the hearts and souls of folks right out of their bodies when they looked into 'em, so full of radiant joy and heavenly sweetness wuz they.
And hair of waving gold, and lips and