Sweet Cicely

Sweet Cicely

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Title: Sweet Cicely Or Josiah Allen as a Politician
Author: Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7251] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 31,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SWEET
CICELY ***

Produced by Richard Prairie, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
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[Illustration: SWEET CICELY.]
SWEET CICELY
OR
JOSIAH ALLEN
AS A
POLITICIAN
BY
"JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE"
(MARIETTA HOLLEY)
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS EIGHTH EDITION
TO
THE SAD-EYED MOTHERS,
WHO, LIKE CICELY,
ARE LOOKING ACROSS THE CRADLE OF THEIR
BOYS INTO THE GREAT WORLD OF
TEMPTATION AND DANGER,
This Book is Dedicated.
PREFACE.
Josiah and me got to talkin' it over. He said it wuzn't right to think more
of one child than you did of another.

And I says, "That is so, Josiah."
And he says, "Then, why did you say yesterday, that you loved sweet
Cicely better than any of the rest of your thought-children? You said
you loved 'em all, and was kinder sorry for the hull on 'em, but you
loved her the best: what made you say it?"
Says I, "I said it, to tell the truth."
"Wall, what did you do it _for_?" he kep' on, determined to get a
reason.
"I did it," says I, a comin' out still plainer,--"I did it to keep from lyin'."
"Wall, when you say it hain't right to feel so, what makes you?"
"I don't know, Josiah," says I, lookin' at him, and beyend him, way into
the depths of emotions and feelin's we can't understand nor help,--
"I don't know why, but I know I do."
And he drawed on his boots, and went out to the barn.
CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV
SWEET CICELY

CHAPTER I.
It was somewhere about the middle of winter, along in the forenoon,
that Josiah Allen was telegrafted to, unexpected. His niece Cicely and
her little boy was goin' to pass through Jonesville the next day on her
way to visit her aunt Mary (aunt on her mother's side), and she would
stop off, and make us a short visit if convenient.
We wuz both tickled, highly tickled; and Josiah, before he had read the
telegraf ten minutes, was out killin' a hen. The plumpest one in the
flock was the order I give; and I wus a beginnin' to make a fuss, and
cook up for her.
We loved her jest about as well as we did Tirzah Ann. Sweet Cicely
was what we used to call her when she was a girl. Sweet Cicely is a
plant that has a pretty white posy. And our niece Cicely was prettier
and purer and sweeter than any posy that ever grew: so we thought then,
and so we think still.
[Illustration: JOSIAH TELLING THE NEWS TO SAMANTHA.]
Her mother was my companion's sister,--one of a pair of twins, Mary
and Maria, that thought the world of each other, as twins will. Their
mother died when they wus both of 'em babies; and they wus adopted
by a rich aunt, who brought 'em up elegant, and likely too: that I will
say for her, if she wus a 'Piscopal, and I a Methodist. I am both liberal
and truthful --very.
Maria wus Cicely's ma, and she wus left a widow when she wus a
young woman; and Cicely wus her only child. And the two wus bound

up in each other as I never see a mother and daughter in my life before
or sense.
The third year after Josiah and