“Oh Doodle! Doodle! if you was alive, I shouldn’t be in this perdickerment!”
If I had had some hen’s feathers by me, I should have burnt a few, or if I had had a tea-cup of water I should have throwed some in my face, to keep me from faintin’ away. But not havin’ none of these conveniences by me, I see I must make a powerful effort, and try to control myself down; and jest as I was a makin’ this effort, these words come again to my almost rigid ear:
“Oh Doodle! Doodle! you never would have stood by, and seen your relict smashed to pieces right before your dear linement.”
And as I heerd these words I see her appearin’ to me. I see the Widder Doodle, emergin’ from the crushin’ crowd, and advancin’ onto me like a phantom. Says I to myself, “Be you a ghost or be you a phantom? Are you a fore-runner, Widder?” says I, “you be a fore-runner, I know you be,” for even as I looked I see behind her the form of Solomon Cypher advancin’ slowly on, and appearin’ to me too. I felt fearfully curious. But in about three-fourths of a minute my senses come back—for the big wave of folks sort o’ swept off somewhere else, and left the Widder Doodle some like a sea-weed nigh me. And on lookin’ closer at her I see that no respectable ghost who thought anything of itself, would go out in company lookin’ so like furyation—I felt better, and says I:
“Widder Doodle, how under the sun did you come here to the Sentinal?”
Says she, “Samantha, I am married; I am on my tower.”
Again I thought almost wildly of burnt feathers, for it seemed so fearfully curious to think she should be a double and twisted ort, as you may say; should be a ort by name, after bein’ one by nater all her days. But again the thought come to me, that I had no conveniences for faintin’ away, and I must be calm, so says I, “Married to Solomon Cypher!”
And then it all come back to me—their talk the day he come to borry my clothes for the mourners; her visits to his housekeeper sense; and his strange and almost foolish errants to our house from day to day; but I didn’t speak my thoughts, I only said:
“Widder Doodle, what ever put it into your head to marry again?”
Well, she said she had kinder got into the habit of marryin’, and it seemed some like a second nater to her—and she thought Solomon had some of Doodle’ses linement—so she thought she would marry him. She said he offered himself in a dretful handsome style; she said the childern of the Abbey, or Thadeus of Warsaw couldn’t done it up in any more foamin’ and romantic way; she said he was a bringin’ her home in his wagon from a visit I remembered her makin’ to his housekeeper.