Our room was good enough, and big enough for Josiah and me to turn round in it one at a time. It had a bed considerable narrer, but good and healthy—hard beds are considered healthy, by the best of doctors—a chair, a lookin’ glass, and a wash-stand. Josiah made a sight of fun of that, because it didn’t have but three legs.
But says I firmly, “That is one more than _you_ have got Josiah Allen.” I wouldn’t stand none of his foolin’.
The room bein’ pretty nigh to the ruff,—_very_ nigh on the backside,—Josiah complained a sight about hittin’ his head ag’inst the rafters. I told him to keep out then where he belonged, and not go to prowlin’ round at the foot of the bed.
“Where _shall_ I go to Samantha,” says he in pitiful axents. “I let you have the chair, and what will become of me, if I don’t set somewhere, on the bed, or sunthin’.”
“Well,” says I mildly, “less try to make the best of things. It haint reasonable to expect to be to home and on a tower at the same time, simultaneous.”
When we eat supper we had a considerable journey to the dinin’ room, which looked a good deal on the plan of Miss Astor’ses, with lots of colored folks a goin’ round, a waitin’ on the hungry crowd. I didn’t see the woman of the house—mebby she was laid up with a headache, or had gone out for an afternoon’s visit—but the colored waiters seemed to be real careful of her property; they’d catch a tea-spoon right out of their pocket and put it in your tea; she couldn’t have kep’ a closer grip on her tea-spoons herself.
I can truly say without stretchin’ the truth the width of a horse hair, that the chamber-maid was as cross as a bear, for every identical thing I asked her for was a extra—she couldn’t do it without extra pay, but she did git me some ice water once, without askin’ me a cent extra for it. After we got to bed Josiah would lay and talk. He would speak out all of a sudden:
And I’d say, “What of it, what if it is?”
And then he’d say: “They have got a crackin’ good name, Samantha. I love to see names that mean sunthin’.” And then he’d ask me if I remembered the song about Barbara Allen, and if it would hurt my feelin’s if he should lay and sing a verse of it to me, the bed put him in mind of it so.