They’d ben havin’ sociables in an’ around Bean Blossom quite frequent fur a spell; but Baker an’ me hadn’t ben to none of ’em. We’re past our rompin’ days, and don’t go much o’ nights ceptin’ to meetin’ an’ sich. But when I took the butter up one mornin’ to Mis’ Peasley (she wus takin’ five pounds a week of me, at store price, too; fur she knowed mine wus alwus good) she got at me fur Baker an’ me to come to one to her house that night.
She’s a powerful hand at sich doin’s, Mis’ Peasley is. She said it wus to be a lunatic sociable an’ got me to promise we’d come; fur I don’t like to cross folks without a good reason fur it. Baker didn’t say much ag’in’ it, so we drove over. Bein’ a lunatic sociable we surmised ’twould be held in the dooryard; fur the folks would have a better chance to see Luna there than in Mis’ Peasley’s front room.
A CALIFORNIA GRIZZLY BEAR.
When we got to Deacon Peasley’s, there wusn’t no one in the dooryard and the hall wus empty too, so Baker rapped. (I never kin learn him to ring a door-bell.) When we went in, that house wus a sight! If Baker an’ me hadn’t had good broad minds, they’d a ben plum upset by the trimmin’s an’ goin’s on as wus there that night. The walls an’ pictur’ frames an’ doorways wus hung with strings of corn-cobs an’ big bows made outen coffee sackin’ an’ newspapers an’ red an’ yaller calico. Mis’ Peasley took my wraps, an’ we set down amongst the folks; fur there wus lots there, Parson Jones an’ most all of ’em, talkin’ an’ laughin’. We didn’t jine in very much, but jest set an’ studied out what they wus at; fur the young folks wus rigged out uncommon startlin’. One girl had ribbons an’ breastpins strung on thick, red an’ green an’ yaller on her hair, that hung in a braid behind, an’ a little bow of narrer pink with ends about a yard long, on behind fur a sash. Her dress skirt wus wrong side out, an’ her feet wus purty considerable in the way, havin’ on her pap’s carpet slippers. One young feller had on one leg of blue overalls an’ tother wus black an’ stuffed in his boot-top, an’ his coat wus decked out here an’ there permiscous like with tin tobacco tags. But it hain’t no use fur me to try to tell how they wus all fixed; but, as I said a spell ago, they looked oncommon startlin’.
All to onct I thought what they wus at, an’ says I, “Felix Baker, I do b’lieve they’re playin’ bein’ lunatics theirselves.”
An’ Baker stomped on the carpet an’ brung his hand down on his knee an’ says, “That’s the idy, mother; that’s it exactly.” An’ then after a minute, “But how’d you reckon Mis’ Bailey feels with her man in the ’sylum, an’ Hugh Brown with his wife, an’ their sisters an’ brethren a-carryin’ on so?”
“Wait, Baker,” says I, “we’ll talk ag’in. Now hain’t no time,” says I; fur I see Mis’ Peasley an’ some of ’em lookin’ at him kinder curius.
At that the Bean Blossom school-teacher sets down on a pumpkin that had three broom-sticks stuck into it an’ tied with green ribbon, fur legs, an’ begun playin’ on the pianner, “Wait till the Clouds Roll By.” It wusn’t long till he wus jinglin’ “Yankee Doodle” an’ “Auld Lang Syne” alternate, an’ after a spell he wound up with “Up in the Mornin’ Airly.”
Then Phil Dorris (a little fat feller that clerks to the shoe store) got up an’ begun tellin’ about settin’ a blue hen, like a Dutchman. He jest got to goin’ good when Rosey Phelps come out in the tother corner of the room an’ commenced speakin’ “Maclean’s Child,” an’ most d’rectly Mabel Jenkins walked right up to her, singin’ “Bye, baby, bye O,” over an’ over. Then that teacher, he went tearin’ acrost the room towards ’em both, a-renderin’ “Spartacus to the Gladiators,” an’ they all kep’ it a-goin’ fur a spell, an’ then kinder quit, one at a time like, with the folks all a-laughin’ like wild.
When they got done, they brought each one of us a dust-pan, with cake and crackers an’ cold beef an’ sass in tumblers, an’ lemonade in flasks, onto ’em. But I couldn’t choke nothin’ down but a swaller or two of lemonade fur thinkin’ of Mis’ Bailey an’ Hugh Brown an’ their troubles; so when they brought in a big copper wash-kittle full of apples an’ peaches, an’ begun handin’ ’em round with a long-handled spoon an’ the tongs, I says to Baker, “We’d best to go home,” fur I knowed if we didn’t I’d up an’ give ’em a speech as wusn’t onto the list, an’ I jedged I’d best not jest then.
Baker see how I wus feelin’, an’ so “All right,” says he, “jest what I wus thinkin’;” but I saw he put a piece of cake into his pocket as I started fur my bunnet.
“You ain’t goin’ now, be you?” says Mis’ Peasley.
“Yes,” says I, “I feel unusual bad, an’ I guess we’d best be a-goin’.”
We set out, an’ when we got to the edge of town, the light shone out so bright from Hugh Brown’s winders Baker stopped the team without hardly knowin’ it. I heerd that Ruth (who’s only fourteen, an’s had charge of the house an’ the four little ones13ever since her ma wus tooken ento the ’sylum) had ben havin’ chills an’ fever fur a week back, an’ I’d ben threat’nin’ to visit her, but hadn’t got to. But fur all my designin’ I felt conscience-struck when I see her a-layin’ onto the bed with her little patient face all red with the fever. Hugh set rockin’ with three-year-old Robbie in his arms asleep. Purty soon he got up an’ laid him by Ruth, kissin’ ’em both good-night, an’ then, lookin’ up to where a pictur’ of his wife took jest before they married hung on the wall, he knelt down by a cheer, the tears rollin’ down like a flood. Baker wanted to go in, but I says: “No, not to-night. They’ll know where we’ve ben. To-morrow I kin do somethin’ to he’p Ruthie, an’ he’s talkin’ to his best Friend now.”
