“No,” says I in a reasonable accent. “No, Simon Slimpsey, it haint.”
“Wall that man has always been a bachelder, and you ought to see what a head of hair he has got, sound at the roots now, not a lock missing. I wanted to be one, she, my late wife, came and kept house for me and married me. I lived with her for 18 years, and when she left me,” he murmured with a contented look, “I was reconciled to it. I was reconciled for sometime before it took place. I don’t want to say anything against nobody that haint here, but I lost some hair by my late wife,” says he puttin’ his hand to his bald head in a abstracted way, as gloomy reflections crowded onto him, “I lost a good deal of hair by her, and I haint much left as you can see,” says he in a meloncholy way “I did want to save a lock or two for my children to keep, as a relict of me. I have 13 children as you know, countin’ each pair of twins as two, and it would take a considerable number of hairs to go round.” Agin he paused overcome by his feelin’s, I knew not what to say to comfort him, and I poured onto him a few comfortin’ adjectives.
“Mebby you are borrowin’ trouble without a cause Simon Slimpsey! with life there is hope! it is always the darkest before daylight.” But in vain. He only sighed mournfully.
“She’ll get round me yet Miss Allen, mark my words, and when the time comes you will think of what I told you.” His face was most black with gloomy aprehension, as he reflected agin. “You see if she don’t get round me!” and a tear began to flow.
I turned away with instinctive delicacy and sot my pan of onions in the sink, but when I glanced at him agin it was still flowin’. And I said to him in a tone of about two thirds pity and one comfort,
“That is the trouble,” says he “if I wasn’t a man, she would give me some peace.” And he wept into his red silk handkerchief (with a yellow border) bitterly.
It was a beautiful mornin’ in October. The trees in the woods nigh by, had all got their new fall suits on, red and purple and orange, while further back, the old hills seemed to be a settin’ up with a blue gauze vail on. There was a little mite of a breeze blowin’ up through the orchard, where the apples lay in red and yellow heaps in the green grass. Everything looked so beautiful and fresh, that as I went out on the doorstep to shake the table-cloth, my heart fairly sung for joy. And I exclaimed to Josiah in clear, happy tones,