“Well,” says she “then you must think on me all you can. Think on me anytime it’s agreeable to you; it don’t make no difference when; any time, day or night; don’t be delicate about it at all. I’ll be glad if I can chirk you up that way, or any other.”
“You have; you have chirked me up Widder; I feel better than I did when I come in here.”
“Well then you must come real often and be chirked up. I haint nothin’ to do hardly, and I may jest as well be a chirkin’ you up as not, and better.”
“Well, so do; come Sunday nights or any time when it is the handiest to you.”
I can’t say but what my mind put out this deep question to myself as I stood there a hearin’ sister Doodle go on;
“Samantha, ort times ort is how many?” And though I answered back to myself calmly and firmly, “ort;” still, thinks’es I to myself, she is a clever critter, and what little sense she has got runs to goodness—and that is more than you can say of some folks’es sense—some folks’es runs to meanness every mite of it; I went out and got my dress and veil. I felt sorry for Solomon, very; and as I handed ’em to him, I says, tryin’ to comfort him:
“She was a likely woman, and I haint a doubt but what she is better off now.”
But he didn’t seem to like it, though I spoke with such good motives. He spoke up real crank:
“I don’t know about that; I don’t know about her bein’ better off, I did well by her.”
I heerd my pies a sozzlin over in the oven bottom, and I hastened to their rescue, and Solomon started off. The Widder, that clever critter, went to the door, and as he went down the door step, I didn’t hear jest what she said to him—bein’ a turnin’ my pies at the time—but I heerd his answer; it was this:
I thought considerable that afternoon (to myself) what clever streaks the Widder Doodle did have in her, (considerin’ her sense) when all of a sudden she give me another sample of it. We got to talkin’ about the Sentinal and though my demeanor was calm, and my mean considerable cool, the old question would come up in my mind: “What shall I do with the Widder Doodle; what _can_ I do with a Widder that don’t want to go, and don’t want to stay?”
The question was a goarin’ me (inwardly) the very minute when she spoke up, and says to me that she would stay to home and keep house for me; she wanted to.